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Literary Witness

From Lollapalooza to Carnegie Hall, from the film Slamnation to the HBO series Def Poetry Jam, Patricia Smith has taken the stage as the nation’s premier performance poet. On Monday, April 7 at 7 p.m., she’ll read from her newest poetry collection, the National Poetry Prize-winning Teahouse of the Almighty (Coffee House Press) in the Plymouth Literary Witnesses series. The event is free.

Smith’s first book of poetry in more than a decade, Teahouse has won wide critical acclaim. Entertainment Weekly wrote, “Dazzling … Smith approaches the themes of love, family and violence through accessible, graceful language and often praises her subjects with a simple ‘hallelujah.’”

In a starred review, Publisher’s Weekly noted, “Smith appears to be that rarest of creatures, a charismatic slam and performance poet whose artistry truly survives the printed page.” Poet Stephen Dobyns assures readers, “she will knock your socks off,” while National Poetry Series judge Edward Sanders confides, “I was weeping for the beauty of poetry when I reached the end of the final poem.” Teahouse is also the recipient of the first national Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the Paterson Poetry Prize.

Smith is the author of three previous poetry collections, plus the children’s book, Janna and the Kings, and co-author of Africans in America: America’s Journey through Slavery. She teaches poetry workshops throughout the country and lives in Tarrytown, New York.

-Jim Lenfestey

BUILDING NICOLE’S MAMA
by Patricia Smith for the 6th grade class of
Lillie C. Evans School, Liberty City, Miami

I am astonished at their mouthful names—
Lakinishia, Fumilayo, Chevallanie, Delayo—
their ragged rebellions and lip-glossed pouts,
and all those pants drooped as drapery.
I rejoice when they kiss my face, whisper wet
and urgent in my ear, make me their obsession
because I have brought them poetry.

They shout me raw, bruise my wrists with pulling,
and brashly claim me as mama as they
cradle my head in their little laps,
waiting for new words to grow in my mouth.

You.
You.
You.
Angry, jubilant, weeping poets—we are all
saviors, reluctant hosannas in the limelight,
but you knew that, didn’t you? Then let us
bless this sixth grade class—40 nappy heads,
40 crackling voices, and all of them
raise their hands when I ask. They have all seen
the Reaper, grim in his heavy robe,
pushing the button for the dead project elevator,
begging for a break at the corner pawn shop,
cackling wildly in the back pew of the Baptist church.

I ask the death question and forty fists
punch the air, me!, me! And O’Neal,
matchstick crack child, watched his mother’s
body become a claw, and 9-year-old Tiko Jefferson,
barely big enough to lift the gun, fired a bullet
into his own throat after Mama bended his back
with a lead pipe. Tamika cried into a soft pillow
when Daddy blasted Mama into the north wall
of their cluttered one-room apartment,
Donya’s cousin gone in a drive-by. Dark window,
click, click, gone says Donya, her tiny finger
a barrel, the thumb a hammer. I am shocked
by their losses—and yet when I read a poem
about my own hard-eyed teenager, Jeffery asks

He is dead yet?

It cannot be comprehended,
my 18-year-old still pushing and pulling
his own breath. And those 40 faces pity me,
knowing that I will soon be as they are,
numb to our bloodied histories,
favoring the Reaper with a thumbs-up and a wink,
hearing the question and shouting me, me,
Miss Smith, I know somebody dead!

Can poetry hurt us? they ask me before
snuggling inside my words to sleep.
I love you, Nicole says, Nicole wearing my face,
pimples peppering her nose, and she is as black
as angels are. Nicole’s braids clipped, their ends
kissed with match flame to seal them,
and can you teach me to write a poem about my mother?
I mean, you write about your daddy and he dead,
can you teach me to remember my mama?

A teacher tells me this is the first time Nicole
has admitted that her mother is gone,
murdered by slim silver needles and a stranger
rifling through her blood, the virus pushing
her skeleton through for Nicole to see.
And now this child with rusted knees
and mismatched shoes sees poetry as her scream
and asks me for the words to build her mother again.
Replacing the voice.
Stitching on the lost flesh.

So poets,
as we pick up our pens,
as we flirt and sin and rejoice behind microphones—
remember Nicole.
She knows that we are here now,
and she is an empty vessel waiting to be filled.

And she is waiting.
And she
is
waiting.
And she waits.

—From Teahouse of the Almighty,
Coffee House Press, ©2006