Patricia Smith

Patricia Smith is a poet, writer, and professor in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, where she teaches introductory and advanced poetry and supervises creative writing thesis students. She is recipient of the Ruth Lilly Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation and a chancellor in the Academy of American Poets. Her books of poetry include Unshuttered, a volume of dramatic monologues accompanied by 19th-century images of African Americans; Incendiary Art, winner of the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Award for Poetry, the 2017 LA Times Book Prize, the 2018 NAACP Image Award and finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize; and Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah, winner of the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets. Her other books include the volumes Teahouse of the Almighty, Close to Death, Big Towns Big Talk, and Life According to Motown; the children's book Janna and the Kings and the history Africans in America, a companion book to the award-winning PBS series.

She has also published three collaborations with award-winning visual artists--Gotta Go, Gotta Flow with Chicago photographer Michael Abramson, and with Emmy Award winner Sandro Miller the books Crowns, and Death in the Desert, both winners of 2022 International Photography Awards.

Smith has performed live with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Angela’s Pulse Dance Troupe, the Sage String Quartet, jazz saxophonist Benjamin Boone and singer Meshell Ndegeocello; “Blood Dazzler,” a dance/theater production based on her book, sold out a two-week run at the Harlem Stage under the guidance of award-winning director Patricia McGregor, and her one-woman show “Life After Motown,” produced by Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott, was performed in residency at the Trinidad Theater Workshop.

Smith is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and fellowships at Yaddo and MacDowell. She is also a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam, the most successful poet in the competition's history. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry, Best American Essays, and Best American Mystery Stories. In addition to her work as a Princeton professor, Smith conducts writing workshops for Cave Canem and the Vermont College of Fine Arts Post-Graduate Writing Program.