It's All About Me. Kinda. Almost.

When you do as many readings as I do, in venues from crumbling speakeasies to Japanese stadiums; when you stand in front of countless classrooms trying to inspire the younguns while they pop bubblegum, update their lip gloss and text message the person sitting next to them; when you sweat over the stanzas in your next book, hoping someone across the country picks it up and hears your voice...
you kinda want something in return.
Sure, it's gratifying when a kid comes up to you with a poem that's been folded and refolded, and you know he's poured his whole young life into that writing. You suspect that something you said changed his life, but then the class is over and he's gone and you're gone and you never really know. Unless, that is...
the poem is about you.
Sweeeeett....

It's happened four times now. I've clicked open my inbox or unlatched an envelope to find that someone has made me the subject of a poem.
Well, actually it's been five times. The first was a tribute (entitled "Lady Panther"...heh, heh) from my good friend Luis Rodriguez, one of my blood-deep Chicago running buddies, who is now the grand poohbah of all things Tia Chucha (it's a poetry press, it's a cultural center, it's magic!). I was amazed that he took the time to write it, and yes, I was pretty embarrassed to be in possession of an ode to me. Black people blush too. I definitely figured it was a one-time thing.
Au contraire. Sporadically through the years, just after a reading or workshop, or after reading one of my books, a poet will respond with an offering of language and line. And I blush again. But I also think it's almost painfully cool.
Tonight I am feeling many feelings. I was with my 8th graders again today--and while they are warming up just a tad (one actually stopped picking incessantly at her split ends to ask a question), I still feel a wall behind many of their faces. They sound inspired, but I suspect they're only as inspired as they need to be to get through our 70 minutes together. I've grown rather fond of the wee imps, but they tend to drain your nectar.
Meanwhile, I just won a really cool prize (prizes and poetry...something we must talk about), and I'm feeling giddy. What follows is a little tooting of my own horn (you have to be limber to do that). Jim Coppoc, my friend at Iowa State, is teaching my book "Teahouse of the Almighty" in his 300-level poetry course, and one of his students, Rachel Lopez Hohenshell, penned this little ditty:
Patricia Smith Brings Truethat
How she gnashes the words in her
teeth real soft
mouth
snarling out truethats
loud as the cacophony of
human wreckage and
exits from the
womb
Her lines curl and flex the
musculature of
souls
slap
tender feet on the
concrete floors of lost
minds and uncharmed
rhymes with the
bring-it step of a
boxer
backsidesidebackupupbacksideside
Metaphor
swells with the red
bulge of
hell's hotly whispered
splendor
Her song howls of the
fresh yowling discovery of
lovers and lost
mothers of
addicted children of
afflicted
mongrels
Dances with the littlebitbehindthebeat
ache of street
jazz and just this side of
shitfaced drunk hands
swerving precariously
around the
twisted metal of verbs
crashed and
nouns
hurtled through the
glass of
stilled air
Her eyes assess the
damage wrought by
truth and the violent
orgasm of
language tangled with
and over
come
Sorry folks , for this bit of self indulgence. Today a 13-year-old girl called me a bad name (rhymes with witch--never mind the adjectives). Today I won a cool prize, a prize that Raymond Carver won once. I'm riding in the middle somewhere, but it's a sweet ride. It's Wednesday night, it's rainy and steamy here in Westchester, and I'm lovin' that Rachel felt what she did and wrote what she wrote.
I'm so friggin' blessed tonight. Somebody gets what I do and understands why I do it. And they took the time to say so.
Wow.