In America, with racism and homophobia and other sociopathologies raging anew through the land, Danez could hardly be more relevant or powerful. My reaction to him was instantaneous: his talents enable him to vivify the pain, outrage, and share the despair, all of it in ways I wasn’t aware I needed to hear, but then was. So: catharsis, in multiple ways, and satisfactions both emotional and formal, because he has a gift for the resonant phrase, the twist of irony, the indelible metaphor.
Connecting so easily and powerfully made me suspicious, though. Was Smith acquiring gravity unfairly, borrowing it from headlines and loaded associations (the names of Philando Castile and Breonna Taylor, e.g., calling forth so many emotions) rather than acquiring it through his own means? Wasn’t there something a bit opportunistic about his choices of subject, raw outrages and long-running tragedies? I noticed he spoke often as The Black Man, or simply The Black Witness, not as a fully complex human being with an individual identity. Had I read here any poems reflecting Danez the solitary individual, full of private cares, eccentric habits and foibles?
Well, yes. A resident of St. Paul, he took to the streets after George Floyd was murdered, witnessed the fires, mayhem, anger. But here were many more poems that weren't born of personal experience but just knowing history.
So it finally it occurred to me that there must be something akin to a Public Poet, comparable to the Walt Whitmans and Maya Angelous, but who navigate the less celebratory side of our national (or merely social) consciousness. Whitman, come to think of it, was another poet who registered with me immediately, almost fully accessible at first read. Obscurantism is not the point of great or even good poetry, however; many fine poems had to grow on me, be parsed and figured out, yes, but not all.
Smith is a street poet, at least in part, I guess, as witness all the ebonics and homie parlance intermixed with more original turns of phrase. If he is at home with poetry slams, though, he must be equally comfortable with the more literary genres.
I like his variety, the visual and formal explorations of “Bluff”, and look forward to a more complete perusal of “ Don’t Call Us Dead,” next up. From that National Book Award runner-up, I can see, as an AIDS sufferer himself, he transcended Generic Aids Victim with poems deeply personal and introspective in reaction to his own suffering.
I don’t read much poetry, certainly not much contemporary poetry, but Smith tapped into a common experience brought to each of us through both history texts and mass media. That forms a closer, more vivid bond these days than what's afforded by, for example, Wordsworth’s hike through daffodils.

Brand	N/A
Rating	5 (9 ratings)
Price	$18
Category	Literature & Fiction

Bluff: Poems