For todayās blog, Iām going to try something new. If you wouldnāt mind, Iām going to ask you to please close your eyes and plug in your headphones to whatever device youāre reading this on. Do you feel the spark of static singing in your ears? Can you hear my voice tracing the rims of your eardrums? Does your heart race faster as my words floss between the follicles of your ear? I hope my voice sounds like one of those sedative professional voice actors.
Todayās blog post is going to be from the special interview I had last week with Danez Smith. However, in the creative writing spirit, I want it to be read as if youāre listening to a podcast. If you donāt know what my voice sounds like, just imagine it sounds like Iām a struggling voice actor in a shoebox for an apartment down in Manhattanā¦in this economy. Rent is due, and this is my final shot. My parents are going to make me work at an investment firm if this doesnāt pull through.
If you do know what my voice sounds like, then for both of our sakes, pretend you donāt and go along with my scenario.
Anyways, back to our regularly scheduled programming.
On todayās episode of the Griot Institute blog, we have a special guest. Sitting with me on these hard sofas in Bucknell Hallās basement is the trailblazing Literary Wizard, aka the Sojka Poet-in-Residence, Danez Smith!
Danez Smith: Thank you for having me!
Athaliah: Before we delve into the nitty-gritty of things, Danez, we have to do the spiel. For the audience listening wherever you are: what are your pronouns, and where are you from?
Danez Smith: For the audience listening wherever you are, my name is Danez Smith. I use they/ them pronouns, and Iām from St Paul, Minnesota. Does that sound about right?
Athaliah: You got it. Look at you, youāre like a pro. Before we begin with the interview, I just wanna give you a round of applause for your performance yesterday, but more specifically, you calling out some students who were laughing during your reading. First of all, it made me scared, like āOooohhhh whatās happeningā¦ā *Danez Smith laughs because Iām so funny* but I didnāt dare turn around to see who got scolded because I was nervous Iād be called out next. I just want to commend you on doing that because it felt very disrespectful, especially with the nature of your work dealing with personal experiences of the Black experience, racism, and all intersections of your identity in America. Iām so glad you called out that disrespect because it was during your ars America (in the hold) reading which covered the complexity of slavery, the Earth, Godās will, and Blackness today. There was no context for them to be laughing about that, and Iām glad you did that.
Danez Smith: Thank you *Danez Smith gives a heartfelt smile and moves their hand to their chest swooningly*
Athaliah: Yes, of course. And to that point, while attending universities like Bucknell, which have predominantly White, wealthy populations, how do you feel your work performs when you read about both your experience and the Black experience at the gaze of the overwhelming White audiences? How do you suppress feelings of insecurity or even shame when talking about race as a Black person, not only reading to White people but teaching White people about racism and the impact it has on you and your community? I feel that as a Black person, it can come across as very jarring to have that authority and power in a room while essentially āpointing fingersā, so how do you deal with that?
Danez Smith: Yeah, I think part of it has taken me a while to come to terms with. It has a lot to do with ownership of that power because if I donāt own that power, then I canāt perform. There have been times in my life where I havenāt been confident enough to own that power, and itās made those conversations uncomfortable, but I realized that I canāt feel like that. The room is about me and my experience, so I have all the power. Iām being brought into these spaces as a guest, so thereās no fear of being retaliated against. They aināt gonna get me fired *We both laugh* The check is signed. *We both laugh again* My work is my work. Itās not like Iām going to come to a place like this and not talk about my experiences. Itās not my job to come into this space and make you feel comfortable. No, actually, my job is to take what I see in the world and hand it to you while you figure out what to do with your own discomfort. I saw a lot of uncomfortable faces in that reading yesterday. Itās good for them (the audience) to feel uncomfortable and to know the world is not centered around them, nor does it bow to them. Thatās because they often get to live in a world that is centered around them and bows to them; itās good for them to experience discomfort. Our job is not to come and assimilate, our job is to come and disrupt.
Athaliah: I like that a lot. I also like what you said about not conforming oneself for another personās comfort. Especially at a place like Bucknell. I can count the amount of Black people I saw in that room (reading room in Bucknell Hall) on one hand. Your reading made me feel like we were having a genuine conversation. Each word you said touched me deeply, and I strongly resonated with your work and performance. There were so many things you said that, as a student, weād face backlash for, so it was inspiring to have heard someone come into our space and say the things we have been longing to say without fear of repercussions. My next question is, what reaffirmed your place in the humanities as a genderqueer Black person, and why did you pursue writing as a lifestyle? I ask this to engage in the discourse that often, people who study the humanities leave university with no sense of financial security or the āskillsā needed for the market. As a marginalized person, where do you feel youāve fit into the humanities, and how have you made it work for you?
Danez Smith: Yeah, I feel very lucky to have been born when I was born. There were tons of examples for me with Black folks working in the humanities and particularly creative writing that pushed me towards my goals. At my university, I had first-hand experience with this due to my first mentor being a Black, gay, Jamaican man and another being a Black dude from Compton. Those two were able to arm me with the tools and strategies I use today. The fact that they were tenured professors at this place also reaffirmed that my dreams were possible. Even beyond them, there was no shortage of examples for me with the Black poets, Black creatives, and Black thinkers who were making lives for themselves. As for being genderqueer, this is a new thing. I think I was born at a time when that language is very solidified now, but I hadnāt met my first genderqueer person until I came to college. And I didn’t know that was an option for me. That blew my mind, and being born at the end of the 80s, there were many Black people and queer people who were doing these things before me. Even if I didnāt have an abundance of them in my face all the time, I didnāt question their existence. And so I knew that I was possible, and I feel very grateful not to have been born in a time when people had to trailblaze. (This is ironic because of the title of my previous blog) I feel like the world is ready for me, and thereās still fear and uncertainty, especially since I didnāt grow up in a family of artists or writers. It was always about survival, and so there was a lot of anxiety about choosing a career path in the arts. I donāt want to struggle. I grew up somewhere between the lower middle and the middle class, and I didnāt believe in that āstarving artistā mindset. I had a full-time job before I took a leap of faith and became a full-time artist. The only reason I became a full-time artist was that while I was working my full-time job, I was also publishing, applying for grants, and maybe by the luck of the draw, I looked up and had two full-sized grants which gave me more money than Iād ever had in my life. That then created the space for me to quit my job and try to become a full-time artist. Being a full-time artist doesnāt mean Iām just writing in my room all day, it also means Iām doing things like this: visiting schools, talking to students, teaching at an MFA program, and doing workshops. I still have to make commerce happen, but luckily, the way I participate in capitalism allows me to pursue my passions. I do this because I had enough examples, and even if my family didnāt understand what I was doing or why, they never told me āNoā. They were willing to be there if I fell and gave me the time, space, and grace to figure things out. I never leaned on them too much for money, but maybe there was a time or two in college when I was like, āGrandma, can you pay this rent?ā *We both laugh* āBecause Iā¦. donāt know what happened to my moneyā *We laugh again*
Athaliah: I definitely resonate with that because Iāve noticed that often with Black students, they arenāt encouraged to follow their passions but instead study what will help them get a lucrative career. A lot of the Black students on this campus are primarily in fields like the sciences or engineering. The Creative Writing department here, which is already fairly small, has a significantly smaller number of Black students enrolled in the courses, but also who have declared it as a major. I do think there needs to be more encouragement for Black people to pursue the arts because the arts are essential to cultivating conversation.
Danez Smith: There is no world without art. There is no humanity without art. Art is what makes us human. We need people to do it. We need people creating. Art canāt just be a reflective activity where we appreciate whatās already been made. Someone has to make the things that will move us forward. Itās so soul-sucking to major or be in a field that does not feed you. I hope that students in the science fields or engineering are in those fields because they actually want to do it. Donāt be a doctor unless you really want to heal people. Donāt be a lawyer unless you really want to fight for justice. Donāt do things to live up to other peopleās expectations instead of your passions.
Athaliah: There was a time when I lowkey thought about being a biology major, and I remembered that I had no business in that field.
Danez Smith: You donāt. You donāt. *Stifles a chuckle*
Athaliah: Iām glad I didnāt. My next question is, where do you feel your Blackness and Queerness fit in the English language? How do you feel this has influenced your identity as a Black Writer who writes primarily in English? I ask this because last semester, I took a course called Black Experimental Literature, and we read a piece called Zong! Which responds to the memories of the enslaved Africans on the Dutch ship of 1781. She explains that the English language can not convey the pain, sorrow, happiness, or existence of Black people because it is a language that has been used to oppress them.
Danez Smith: English is the only language I know, I mean, I speak some Spanish, but not enough to be a poet. I recognize the limitations of English, but it is the only language I know. I would love to learn an African language at some point. A beautiful moment I recall was at the Furious Flower Conference. You were there, right?
Athaliah: Yes.
Danez Smith: Yeah, you remember the Nigerian elder who received the Lifetime Achievement Award and began singing in Yoruba? What a moment of healing, as I was weeping the whole time. It felt like an invitation from an elder across the diaspora to come sing a song in a language that belonged to us. I found that so moving and so redemptive to know that we were all singing together in a language that was not scarred or didnāt start in trauma, violence, separation, and enslavement. Even though English is limited and the language of the colonizer, my English is My English. My English is a Black English. My English is a Queer English. My English is a Mid-Western, Southern English and I try to use it in ways that feel imbued with what my people have done with it. There are certain sentence structures and syntax in my work that only can be recognized as Black. I try to sound like myself, which is to sound like my people when writing, and that rescues something spiritually from the confines of only being able to express myself in the colonizerās language.
Athaliah: I like that, and I think itās beautiful to read works by Black writers and see that they branch off between English derived from England and English composed by Black Americans. Your work does a good job of fusing the two. At your reading yesterday, you read a piece from Homie about your best friend, and it connected with me because it sounded exactly like Iād speak to my best friend. I loved it so much, and I read another piece by you in Bluff, titled Jesus Be a Durag. Even from the title, I am able to understand what you are saying or what the nature of the poem is about. That is very meaningful for Black writers like myself, to see that.
Danez Smith: Yeah, you have to be unapologetically yourself. I am not interested in assimilating into a culture that requires the destruction of my culture. I am not interested in assimilating into a society that requires me to destroy my relationship to my culture. Yeah, itās just not fun. Being Black is a lot of fun. *We both laugh* I wouldnāt wanna be anything else. And itās beautiful, you know, especially thinking about diasporic blackness. Although my own family lineage can only be traced so far back before the disruption, which was slavery, I still know there are such brilliant African ways of knowing how to live. You can put us on the boat and beat our cultures out of us, but we will still retain it in spirit. The more I learn about West African culture the more I am able to connect it to things I know today and my identity today. To me, even if we are locked in the colonizerās tongue, there is something about blackness that is so indestructible. We will pick up whatever language you colonize over us; weāll pick up the Spanish, weāll pick up the French, weāll pick up the English, weāll pick up the Dutch.. And watch what we do with it.
Athaliah: Even the way you introduced yourself yesterday reflects your confidence in yourself and your language. The way you introduce yourself to someone has a lot of power, and your language shows that you are assertive about the crowd engaging with you. It was very heartwarming to see you be so assertive and steer the crowd to engage in a conversation with you or at least listen to you.
Danez Smith: Letās set the rules of engagement. You not gonna sit there and be silent, you not gone laughā¦ unless I say something funny. You will greet me back. I think something clicked when I turned 35 recently. Iām old now, and so I demand to be respected. *We both cackle* I was like, āYou gone talk back!ā *We continue laughing* Very much that. Very that kind of Black.
Athaliah: And you were like, āWhen a Black person says āHelloā to you, you say āHelloā backā. And I was like, āYes, say āHelloā backā. I also appreciate that you brought forth the Black language of slam poetry by encouraging the audience to snap their fingers, clap, or go āMmmmā in agreement with whatever theyāve heard. Iām glad you brought that to Bucknell because a lot of these people probably genuinely didnāt know how to react, but you very explicitly showed and told them how to take part in this culture by engaging with the language. You invited them into your language which was very beautiful. To that, in what ways do you believe your work reflects your growth as a writer? I ask that because you spoke about the difference between your work in Homie and then Bluff. How do you think those two pieces of work speak to one another? And what would you like readers to take away from that conversation?
Danez Smith: Bluff is the first book Iāve written in my 30s; everything else Iāve written was in my 20s. I think there is a sense of maturity in Bluff, a maturity which comes when one gains the ability to look back at oneself. I donāt think I was strong enough in my 20s to really be honest about the dirt I had done or reflect on myself as someone other than a āheroā or a person that things happen to. The biggest difference is that Iām able to talk about our responsibility to each other as humans and reflect on myself as a person who has not always been good to people. In the art, I feel fearless and the ability to know that if Iām scared of something I have the ability to push past it. That makes me feel limitless and reach around things that arenāt for me. I feel stronger and more sure of myself compared to how I felt in my 20s. I was stuck in a loop of trying to prove my worth, and I couldn’t realize that I was worth a lot. I know that my knowledge is worth something, and that isnāt about cockiness or narcissism, but itās about assuredness that I am of value and I have something to say. I am strong enough to be proven wrong, admit Iām wrong, and change my actions.
Athaliah: That shows a lot of growth.
Danez Smith: Yeah, it does. Shout out to therapy. *We both burst out laughing*
Athaliah: My last formal question is if black writers should seek mentorship and how we can make something of ourselves in the literary world?
Danez Smith: Yes, Black writers should 100% seek mentorship in both directions. Black writers should seek mentors, and we should seek to be mentors. It stresses both ways. Blackness, for me is not about the individual, and I think whiteness as a race and concept can push our people into focusing on individuality. Whereas, I think blackness as a concept mandates community. I think the community is at its richest when it spans other types of difference and textures. I think intergenerational kinship, which can also look like mentorship, is very important. Also, you should seek mentorship because there is no reason you should have to do it all alone. You should seek mentorship, you should seek comradeship, you should seek friendship. You should seek community in all of its varying shapes as a Black writer because it will make you stronger. It will make anyone stronger, but particularly as a Black writer, it will help. Blackness happens not in a vacuum but in relation. Writers can make something of themselves by taking risks. The success will come, or it wonāt, but thereās no timer on it. Just make sure that when the microphone gets put in your face, youāre ready to tell the truth. Thatās how you make something of yourself. As a Black writer, donāt chase success. The people who chase success are never satisfied. You could win every award in the world, but if youāre chasing some ideal success, youāll never be satisfied. Instead, chase to change something of the lives, souls, and visions of the people you encounter with. The real goal is to make art that reorders, redirects, protects, and galvanizes people.
Athaliah: On the topic of friendship, even in your poems of Black pain and suffering, there was always a theme of love and community. I really appreciated that because often in these stories of painful, traumatic stories there is an erasure of stories of love and kinship. Your poems reiterated that we have community and we have each other no matter what. We can find that missing piece of ourselves in one another.
Danez Smith: Thank you for saying that because I do feel like love is at the center of all my work. Even the reason why I hate racism is because it is an interruption to love and happiness. Racism interrupts the way I am able to love others to the fullest extent. It applies to transphobia, homophobia, sexism, and all the things. It all comes down to love, and it starts with love as well. I consider myself a love practitioner, and in all areas of my life, I think about ways to amplify love and do it better. Love is it. To wrap this up, for any young writers, particularly Black writers who are reading this, write hard, read more, be strange, be honest, be fierce, and if something feels like it is trying to kill your light, it is, so get away from it and go towards the things that feel like they nourish you and challenge you without seeking to destroy you. Some of these forces out here seek to challenge you while also destroying you, and you know what that feels like. Just protect yourselves and each other, especially at these PWIs. Always remember that there is a world outside of here, this wonāt be the rest of your life. I pray protection, I pray smoothness, I pray that everybody who seeks to ruin your day with their words or actions finds themselves suddenly paralyzed with a dry mouth that canāt open. Youāll make it out of here, thereās a whole world out there. If you can survive Bucknell, you can survive anywhere. *We both laugh as the audio fades out*
We conclude todayās episode of the Griot Institute blog with a song to leave you in high spirits. Thank you for listening, and tune in next time for the newest episode of my podcast that does not exist!
—Athaliah Elvis