10TH ANNUAL (AND FINAL) NAPOMO 30/30/30 :: DAY 30 :: B. BATCHELOR on DANEZ SMITH
Week four of this year’s Poetry Month series is curated by Caits Meissner, who writes: “all of the writers featured in our final week are either in, or have served time in, jail and/or prison. But I didn’t choose them with the intention to illuminate the experience of incarceration — though many of the essays do, of course — or to advocate for anything other than the poets who spark up their blood. Quite simply, I invited this roster of writers because what I do with my days is think about, commune with and work with writers who share the condition of incarceration. It is part of my commitment to create space for these voices in the wider literary community.” Read the rest of her curatorial statement here. –EM
What poet or poetry groupie doesn’t already know the name Danez Smith? They don’t need me to champion them into another hundred fans or followers or book sales; they already have all the celebrated acclaim of a future hall-of-famer. What I bring to the discussion is perspective from a heterosexual, middle-class, Southern white guy who found inspiration in a black, queer writer and performer from St. Paul, Minnesota. Call it juxtaposition.
I first discovered Danez on Minnesota public television, them at a church, highschool-young, leaning into their spoken word like a prophet into gospel, all ambitious faith and promise of what’s to come. I thought all the young phenoms on my television screen were dope as hell, me this 30-year old inmate in a dank, dim-lit cell, grappling with identity and maturation and a blooming love for poetry. I was still traipsing the contemporary poetry landscape, reshaping my bad and antiquated poetry education from grade school, all those all dead white dudes and their tweed jackets. I was all about poetry in 2012, eager and giddy and fucking starving. Because I was an inmate in Minnesota, and the Twin Cities were known for its thriving literary scene, I went local for poetry, recognizing Danez among the names.
When I read Danez’s first full collection, [insert] boy, I was unaware of their background and identity that literally raved every poem, loud and transparent and fearless with movement. Yeah, I was surprised at the explicit, unapologetic content I was virgin to, but it was instant adoration because they were clearly fluent in marginalization, as was I. Then came Don’t Call Us Dead and I lost my damn mind! I lived with that collection daily, it my talisman informing my creativity, pushing the boundaries of my writing. The speculative, fervent “summer, somewhere” became an addiction I returned to again and again:
from “summer, somewhere”
if you press your ear to the dirt
you can hear it hum, not like it’s filled
with beetles & other low gods
but like a tongue rot with gospel
& other glories. listen to the dirt
crescendo a kid back.
come. celebrate. this
is everyday. everyday
holy. everyday high
holiday. everyday new
year. every year, days get longer.
time clogged with boys. the boys
O the boys, they still come
in droves. the old world
keeps choking them. our new one
can’t stop spitting them out.
Fresh imagery, music like classic blues, urgent line breaks, deft control . . . this poem, all the poems, were my MFA program. Danez’s ruthless, confessional nature gave me permission and courage to be vulnerable in my authenticity. We may inhabit different bodies, Danez and I, but we’re kindred and that’s real talk. Their poems populate a sacred space between grief and reimagination, between suffrage and possibility, and that’s where I’ve bunked up. I know brutality, have victimized and been victim. If there’s anything I’ve learned from Danez Smith, it’s that heart is the true poetry, that many-valved thing in us that gives blood and bleeds.
B Batchelor is a member of the Stillwater Writers Collective and Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. His poetry has appeared in the Nation, Columbia: A Journal of Literature & Art, Cream City Review, and the Laurel Review. He won the 2015 First Prize in poetry from PEN America’s annual prison writing contest. He has been incarcerated since 2002. You can write to B Batchelor at: bbatchelor0717@gmail.com.
