Poetry off the Shelf: Patricia Smith and Reginald Dwayne Betts
Patricia Smith has been called “a testament to the power of words to change lives.” She is the author of six books of poetry, including Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah (2012), which won a Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets; Blood Dazzler (2008), a chronicle of the human and environmental cost of Hurricane Katrina which was nominated for a National Book Award; and Teahouse of the Almighty, a 2005 National Poetry Series selection. Smith is a professor at the College of Staten Island and an instructor in the MFA program at Sierra Nevada College.
Reginald Dwayne Betts is author of the memoir A Question of Freedom (2009) and the poetry collections Shahid Reads His Own Palm (2010), and Bastards of the Reagan Era (2015). He is a 2010 Soros Justice Fellow and 2011 Radcliffe Fellow.
Cosponsored with the Northwestern University Center for the Writing Arts