Patricia Smith, Poet - Marfa, Summer 2008
Patricia Smith is the author of five books of poetry, including Blood Dazzler, a book of poems chronicling the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, and Teahouse of the Almighty, a 2005 National Poetry Series selection, winner of the 2007 Hurston-Wright Legacy Award and the 2007 Paterson Poetry Prize. Teahouse was also voted the Best Poetry Book of 2006 by About.com. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, TriQuarterly and many other journals. She is also the author of the groundbreaking history Africans in America and the children’s book Janna and the Kings, winner of a Lee & Low Books New Voices Award. In addition, she is a Pushcart Prize winner, a Cave Canem faculty member and a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam. In 2006, during a ceremony at the Gwendolyn Brooks Center of Chicago State University, she was voted into the National Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent. Currently, Smith is working on the young adult novel The Journey of Willie J, a verse memoir and a Blood Dazzler collaboration with Urban Bush Women choreographer Paloma McGregor.
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Dr. Lucy Boulanger and Dr. John Fogarty are working to develop a new energy economy based on renewable sources by organizing advocates from Native American and Hispanic communities.