Danez Smith, author of Bluff
Poetry Category, sponsored by Wellington Management, Inc.
Each week leading up to the 37th annual Minnesota Book Awards, we are featuring exclusive interviews with our finalists. You can also watch the authors in conversation with their fellow category finalists here.
What inspired you to write this book – or inspired you while writing it?
For me, so far, poetry collections are discovered in the middle of writing them. I’m writing and then somewhere along the road I am aware of where my attention and curiosity has been focusing and then I can lean into that. Writing Bluff, I was thinking about the power and failures of poetry and art-making, I was thinking about the Twin Cities in 2020 and beyond (in both directions of time). I was thinking about Rondo, my family, my career, my people, my love, my world, our world, our collective futures. I was inspired by my rage, my love, my dissatisfaction, my hope, and my confusion.
What is one detail you wanted to include in this book, but couldn’t find a place for?
There were a few things I wanted to included that you can actually see if you scan the QR code on page 42!
Tell us about someone (whose name isn’t on the cover!) who proved instrumental to the creation of this book.
My friend, the master poet Angel Nafis, read an early draft of the book and gave me a good talk that made room for much more hope, love,and possibility in the spirit of the poems than was originally there. Sometimes you need your friends to help you see your vision. Thank God we are allowed folks who help us see our vision, who can collaborate and recalibrate with our spirits and our hearts.
Please tell us something about yourself that is not widely known. (It doesn’t have to be about the book in question – or even about your writing at all!)
I’m in charge of the turkey and the mac and cheese on Thanksgiving. I’m a pretty decent cook in general.
Share your thoughts about the role and value of libraries.
Libraries are, to me, a right like air and water and education and housing and the decency that all humans should be afforded. Libraries are places we were can travel the world without leaving our neighborhoods. They are places we can find shelter and comfort, but also where we can be broken out from the confines of our comfort, where our minds are safe to be unsheltered. Libraries are places where we can trust to grow our hearts and minds. The enemies of libraries are enemies to the future, to education, to intelligence, to the soul’s need for language.
Danez Smith is the author of three previous poetry collections, including Homie, winner of the Minnesota Book Award and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the NAACP Image Award. Don’t Call Us Dead won the Forward Prize for Best Collection and was a finalist for the National Book Award.