Danez Smith is an American poet, writer and performer from St Paul, Minnesota.
11 Facts About Danez Smith
1.
2.
Danez Smith has said that they struggled with reading up until the third grade.
3.
Danez Smith was a First Wave Urban Arts Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, graduating with a BA in 2012.
4.
Danez Smith is a founding member of Dark Noise Collective with Fatimah Asghar, Franny Choi, Nate Marshall, Aaron Samuels, and Jamila Woods.
5.
On March 30,2017, Danez Smith was the inaugural guest of the Alexander Lawrence Posey Speaker Series at the University of Central Oklahoma.
6.
Danez Smith's second book, Don't Call Us Dead: Poems, was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award for poetry.
7.
Danez Smith is the author of two chapbooks, hands on ya knees and black movie, winner of the Button Poetry Prize.
8.
Danez Smith has twice been a finalist in Individual World Poetry Slam.
9.
Danez Smith won a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts grant.
10.
Danez Smith serves on the board of directors for the DC-based poetry non-profit Split This Rock.
11.
In 2020, Danez Smith published a third poetry collection called Homie.