Patricia Smith speaks to power of poetry in Convocation address: ‘It had me hooked’

Patricia Smith celebrated the beauty and power of poetry as she delivered Lawrence University’s annual University Convocation in Memorial Chapel on Jan. 24.

Smith shared how she fell hard for poetry nearly four decades ago when she happened upon a literary group in Chicago—a gathering of performance poets, academics, and other writers. She felt the power of their words, the way their use of language could make you feel and think. She said she was mesmerized by a performance of a persona poem in the voice of a man cutting the hair of people about to go to the gas chamber during the Holocaust. He knew where they were going but they did not.

“It was the most riveting, life-changing thing,” Smith said of hearing that poem, feeling its grace and power. “And then at the end there was this white hot moment of silence. No one knew what to do. And I said, ‘I don’t know much about poetry … but I’ve never seen an audience captivated in that way.’ … It had me hooked.”

Smith would go on to win the National Poetry Slam four times. She is the author of multiple acclaimed books of poetry, among them. Unshuttered (2023), Incendiary Art (2017), Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah (2012), and Blood Dazzler (2008). Students in Lawrence’s First-Year Studies course have been studying Blood Dazzler, among the selected works tied to the course’s “water” theme. The book chronicles the human, physical, and emotional toll of Hurricane Katrina. 

Smith told the gathering in Memorial Chapel that she finds inspiration in her curiosity, from big and bold events such as Katrina—the center of Blood Dazzler—and street violence, to cultural asides such as the cartoons of Tom and Jerry and Popeye, to the travails of family dysfunction.

“Every family is a dysfunctional family,” she said. “Everyone here has something they would not say out loud in this room.”

Poetry, Smith said, can give voice to the pain, joy, bemusement, and discomfort in ways that make us feel connected, vulnerable.

“The best thing I can do as a poet is tell you I am just like you,” she said.

A professor in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, Smith is a Guggenheim fellow, a National Endowment for the Arts grant recipient, a two-time winner of the Pushcart Prize, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, and a finalist for the Neustadt Prize.

Her Convocation address drew huge applause from the students, faculty, staff, and community members gathered in the Chapel. Smith returned the love, saying her two days at Lawrence had been a special experience. She said he was humbled and honored that Lawrence students were studying her works so closely, including in the First-Year Studies course.

“I’ve never really encountered faculty so driven, so engaged, so excited about the possibilities,” Smith said. “They’re funny and they’re charming and they’re brilliant. And the students are even more so. I can’t get over that you have read my work so closely, and with such curiosity.”

The Winter Term convocation, known as University Convocation, is the second of three convocations held each academic year at Lawrence. It annually features an invited guest speaker to share ideas and insight on contemporary issues. The first convocation of the year, the Matriculation Convocation, held in September, features a welcoming address from the university president to kick off a new academic year. And the Spring Term convocation, known as the Honors Convocation, celebrates student and faculty achievements and includes an address from a selected member of the faculty. It will be held at 12:30 p.m. May 30 in Memorial Chapel, with Allison Fleshman, associate professor of chemistry, delivering the address.