Danez Smith is a poet, performer, and playwright from St. Paul, MN. Danez, A Cave Canem fellow, is  published in PANK, Illumination, Orange Quarterly, and elsewhere. Danez is a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a founding member of the First Wave Hip-Hop Theatre Ensemble. A Slam Champion of the Minneapolis and Madison Poetry scenes, Danez has established himself as a performer, writer, teacher, and personality in his many worlds, recently placing 6th in the world at the Individual World Poetry Slam. His One-Man Theatre Production “For Those Who Pray In Closets” is receiving critical acclaim and standing ovations wherever it is performed. Danez has travelled across the country and the globe to Mexico, Panama, Switzerland, and England to perform poetry and theatre. A young artist walking and writing in the footsteps of Balwin and  Hughes, Danez seeks to continue to be a voice for hushed choir boys, the walking shadows, the joy, hurt, and journey of the black, queer men. Pulling from his artistic endeavors in music and theatre, his voice on the page sings of his old soul, his experienced youth, his treasured mistakes, and all the things that imagine him human.

Source: Caven Canem

For black boys

you were born

made from matchbooks and sparks

your skin, history’s shrapnel

you wade through your people gun smoke

for a battle nobody ever named more than “struggle”

a bullet wound where your mouth should be

switch blade tongue, grenade  pin teeth

they are afraid when you speak

where you see God, they see tin man

made form prison bars

or gorillas trained to shoot or chalk

outlines in bad neighborhoods

you are a heavenless thing to them

wings made of chains, a halo

grown tired and fat resting around your neck

this would be the part where I would use noose imagery

but lynching is easy to explain

How do you describe a son set

course to casket from birth?

The grim reaper is named Ray-Ray

he is your cousin and has tears

inked into his cheek

because no one told him

he was he was beautiful enough

to cry. he has a talent

for making ghost.