My friends had just been a really big part of my life, especially in my 20s. It makes sense that I was attracted to it. I didn’t really know that I had been writing a book about it until I went looking to see if I had written a book about anything. And by the time I looked up, I just had a bunch of work that was about friendship. You write a poem because it’s what’s on your heart, what’s on your mind, it’s what brings you joy or play for that day, or peace for that day. So what made you decide to write poetry about this unspeakable thing? And how would you define it?ĭanez Smith: For me, poems and books sort of happen just through letting the mind and the work wander. Part of the thing about friendship is that you know it when you have it, but you don’t often say what it is. Whitney Terrell: There’s a line I really liked-among many lines I liked-from your poem “how many of us have them?” You write, “Andrew used to say / friendship is so friendship & ain’t it?” And that line gets to the unspeakable part of what friendship is, what it means, how it is defined. Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone by Eduardo Galeano.‘Feet’ and ‘Spoon’ from Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay.

Recordings of June Jordan from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University Digitized recordings and more digitized recordings.Review: ‘Homie,’ a Book of Poems That Produces Shocking New Vibrations by Pahrul Sehgal.what was said on the bus stop: a new poem by Danez Smith Ĭorona Correspondences: #28 by Danielle Evans ( The Sewanee Review).You can also listen by streaming from the player below. To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). An edited video of this conversation will appear tomorrow. This episode is presented in conjunction with the Loft Literary Center’s literary festival, Wordplay, which this year is a virtual event. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about the isolating effect COVID-19 has had on black communities, using space on the page inventively, and writing about money. Smith talks to Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast co-hosts V.V. In this episode, acclaimed poet Danez Smith discusses the role friendship plays in their most recent collection of poetry, Homie.

Homie poems danez smith