{"id":18778,"date":"2026-03-04T10:18:50","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T15:18:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/woodruff\/?p=18778"},"modified":"2026-03-16T11:41:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T15:41:17","slug":"acclaimed-poet-danez-smith-will-headline-two-readings-at-emory-in-april","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/woodruff\/news\/acclaimed-poet-danez-smith-will-headline-two-readings-at-emory-in-april","title":{"rendered":"Acclaimed poet Danez Smith will headline two readings at Emory in April"},"content":{"rendered":"

April is National Poetry Month, which means it\u2019s the perfect time for the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library<\/a> to host its annual Raymond Danowski Poetry Library<\/a> reading with Pulitzer Prize in Poetry finalist and acclaimed author, critic, and poetry slam champion Danez Smith.<\/p>\n

Open to the public at no charge, the reading will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 18, at the Auburn Avenue Research Library<\/a>, 101 Auburn Ave NE, Atlanta, GA 30303. Register here<\/a> to get tickets. (Seating and parking are limited, and early arrival is recommended.)<\/p>\n

\"\"

Credit: @ Anna Min<\/p><\/div>\n

Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Smith is known for their powerful, emotional writings. They are the author of four celebrated poetry collections, including \u201c[insert] Boy\u201d (2014), \u201cDon\u2019t Call Us Dead\u201d (2017), \u201cHomie\u201d (2020) and most recently, \u201cBluff\u201d (2024), for which they were named a 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry finalist. They also curated \u201cBlues in Stereo: The Early Works of Langston Hughes\u201d (2024).<\/p>\n

Their work has been recognized with the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Minnesota Book Award in Poetry, the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Smith has also been a finalist for the National Book Award, the NAACP Image Award in Poetry, and the National Book Critics Circle Award and has received an array of grants, fellowships, and residencies, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and the Princeton Arts Fellowship.<\/p>\n

Smith delivers poetry that engages questions of identity, justice, language and belonging. In recent years, they have written about the Black Lives Matter movement, LGBTQ-related issues and violence against immigrants and protestors in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

A variety of poets<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Rose Library strives to represent all the different facets of poetry with both its collections and its readings, bringing in talents ranging from well-known poet laureates to emerging poets to read their work, says director Elizabeth Ott.<\/p>\n

\u201cSmith’s poetry is very engaged in the cultural and political landscape of our present times,\u201d says Ott. \u201cAnd if you think about some of our foundational poets at Rose Library, from Seamus Heaney to Natasha Tretheway or Lucille Clifton, they are poets who write about the complex political and social and cultural crossroads that they find themselves mired within. Poetry is not just an art form and not just for study, it’s also a tool through which we understand social and political upheaval, and Smith\u2019s body of work challenges us to engage in just this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith is also a founding member of the multi-genre, multicultural Dark Noise Collective<\/a>, which features some of the most exciting, insightful, and powerful poets writing today. Smith\u2019s writing has appeared in\u00a0Vanity Fair,\u00a0The New York Times,\u00a0The New Yorker,\u00a0GQ, Lit Hub,\u00a0\u201cBest American Poetry,\u201d on \u201cThe Late Show with Stephen Colbert,\u201d and in many other outlets. In poetry slam, Smith was a 2011 Individual World Poetry Slam finalist and the two-time Rustbelt Individual Champion.<\/p>\n

\u201cDanez Smith rose to international acclaim with their debut collection of poetry back in 2017,\u201d says Heather Christle, poet and associate professor of English and creative writing in Emory\u2019s English department. \u201cIn \u2018Bluff,\u2019 they demonstrate their restless seeking for what poetry can, and cannot, achieve, pushing at the boundaries of the page and language to do so. They just keep raising the bar and then clearing it! To top it off, they are an incredibly compelling performer, and I’m so excited that the people of Emory and Atlanta will get to bear witness to this in person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christle, who is teaching \u201cBluff\u201d this year in her Advanced Poetry Seminar, is the faculty partner for the Danowski public reading on Saturday. Her role is to collaborate on planning a student engagement event at Rose Library the day before the Danowski reading, where Emory students will meet with Smith and ask questions about their poetry, career, and writing. She also partners with the library on promoting the Danowski reading to Emory students.<\/p>\n

Two days of poetry<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Smith\u2019s reading is part of a two-day poetry weekend that begins Friday, April 17, when they will read more of their award-winning works as the distinguished guest poet for the 26th Annual 12th Night Revel, a gala dinner and glittering evening of poetry benefiting the Rose Library.<\/p>\n

The 12th Night Revel takes place at 6 p.m. that Friday at the Atlanta History Center<\/a>, with Branden Grimmett, Emory\u2019s vice provost for career & professional development and associate dean of Emory College of Arts & Sciences, serving as Chief Reveler.<\/p>\n

The event is open to the public, and newcomers are welcome to join the festivities, which include dinner, poetry readings from attendees, and the opportunity to mingle with Smith and fellow guests. Individual and group tickets may be purchased on the 12th Night ticket webpage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that people who come to this year’s reading will have that opportunity to be transformed by poetry, to experience it with all the senses, not just to read it silently, but to be in community with one another,\u201d says Ott.<\/p>\n

In addition to their writing, Smith teaches in the Randolph College MFA program and at the Black Youth Healing Arts Center in St. Paul. They currently live in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

Smith\u2019s public reading at Emory is sponsored by the Hightower Fund, Emory Libraries and the Rose Library, Emory\u2019s Department of English and the Creative Writing Program, Emory Arts, Auburn Avenue Research Library and the Decatur Book Festival.<\/p>\n

\u2014written by Maureen McGavin, senior writer, Emory Libraries<\/em><\/p>\n


\nRelated links:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Danowski reading registration link<\/a><\/p>\n

12th<\/sup> Night purchase tickets link<\/a><\/p>\n

Auburn Avenue Research Library<\/a><\/p>\n

Atlanta History Center<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April is National Poetry Month, which means it\u2019s the perfect time for the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library to host its annual Raymond Danowski Poetry Library reading with Pulitzer Prize in Poetry finalist and acclaimed author, critic, and poetry slam champion Danez Smith. Open to the public at no charge, the Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2621,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,704],"tags":[1804,1814],"class_list":["post-18778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-press-releases","tag-curated","tag-keywords-newsletter-2026"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8NNKS-4SS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/woodruff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/woodruff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/woodruff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/woodruff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2621"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/woodruff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18778"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/woodruff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18836,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/woodruff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18778\/revisions\/18836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/woodruff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/woodruff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/woodruff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}