Jon Sands Interviews Patricia Smith and the Whole World Makes Sense Again

Jon Sands Interviews Patricia Smith and the Whole World Makes Sense Again:

laurenzuni:

“Once I was in a middle school in Chicago, supposedly doing poetry. The kids weren’t havin’ it. I was an interruption in their day, welcome (because they didn’t have to do any work) but resented (who did I think I was?). I spent the whole time waxing poetic to the disinterested throngs, working hard to pull them in with ANYTHING, but they’d already made up their minds. Blanket rejection. Glaring.

 Gumpopping. Tooth sucking. Muttered invectives. In other words, POET FAIL. I dragged through my time there, already wondering what I’d done wrong and what I could do to be better. The last bell rang, I headed for my car. Just as I put my key in the lock, one of my most vehement antagonists (“You ain’t my mama. You can’t make me listen to nuthin’”) came up and pressed something into my hand. I was startled at first, and I’m ashamed to admit that I thought he was going to mug me. Instead, I looked at the sweated, folded up little piece of paper he’d urged into my hand. I knew without looking that it was a poem, a spectacular risk for him, something he couldn’t admit to in the presence of his peers. That hot little connection, palm to palm, reeking of desperation and beginning? Religion.”
 - Patricia Smith