Danez Smith is the winner of a 2014 Ruth Lilly/Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. They are the author of Homie (Graywolf), Don’t Call Us Dead (Graywolf), “[insert] boy” (YesYes Books, 2014), one of the Boston Globe’s Best Poetry Books of 2014, & two chapbooks– “black movie” (Button Poetry, 2015), winner of the 2014 Button Poetry Prize, & “hands on ya knees” (Penmanship Books, 2013).

Smith is a Cave Canem, VONA, and McKnight Foundation Fellow. Their writing has appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, Beloit Poetry Journal, Narrative & elsewhere. They were featured in The Academy of American Poets’ Emerging Poets Series by Patricia Smith. They are a founding member of the multi-genre, multicultural collective Dark Noise. Danez placed second at the 2014 Individual World Poetry Slam and is the two-time Rustbelt Regional Champion. In 2014, they were the Festival Director for the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam. Danez holds a BA from UW-Madison where they were a First Wave Urban Arts Scholar. They live in Minneapolis, MN.