Kate Kellaway Introduces Guardian Readers to Danez Smith

Danez Smith's poetry collection Don't Call Us Dead is about to be published in the United Kingdom. To mark the occasion, Kate Kellaway introduces The Guardian's readers to the poet. Smith and Kellaway met up in Manchester, where Smith recorded a reading for Radio 3's The Verb. Later, Kellaway watched Smith perform at the LRB's Bookshop in London. "Like some of the greatest actors, Smith, who is 28, has the ability to seem ordinary offstage, to become invisible at will," Kellaway remarks. From there: 

Wearing a warm, striped yellow-and-maroon knitted scarf, clunky specs, jeans and a rucksack, the poet could be a student, or a BBC sound engineer. But there is no subduing the sunburst smile or the charm. Tattoos, often showily visible in performance, can barely be seen sneaking out from cuffs. Only the fingers give away a taste for over-the-top attire. The rings are an assortment of knuckledusters: an eye-catching family of misfits and bruisers. They are toned down today, Smith insists.

In its way, dear white america is a knuckleduster of a poem. Another is dinosaurs in the hood (Smith eschews the upper case throughout all the poems, always favouring the little ‘i’), exploding racial stereotyping, imagining the devising of a dinosaur movie: “this movie can’t be about race./ this movie can’t be about black pain or cause black pain/ this movie can’t be about a long history of having a long history with hurt.” It is a poem about giving metaphor the slip, about shaking off the shackles of white interpretation. Both are poetic dynamite (not all the poems are as full-on). Smith tells me that the online success of Dear White America and other poems about black struggle has made things complicated. Although great news in one way, it felt uncomfortable to profit from suffering (Smith makes a living through gigs).

And when, days after our meeting, I hear Smith perform in London’s LRB bookshop, I am struck by the tone of buoyant confrontation, Smith telling the white Brits in the audience not to feel detached as they listen to dear white america, adding: “You invented racism.” The performance has extraordinary projection, adrenalin and vocal range. Smith hustles, mourns and jubilates (a verb just made for Smith) – “Look, I’m not going to manufacture/any more sadness” – and sometimes, breaks into song.

Learn more at The Guardian.