Patricia Smith @pswordwoman Twitter profile

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Patricia Smith

10 months

Time to take an extended break from this shambolic realm. So much world begging to become story. I wish you all the words you need, and light to write them by.

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Last Seen Profiles

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@STA_Baseball

Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

3 years

Poetry doesn't cure grief--but it understands.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

3 years

The Capitol steps during the BLM protests.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

5 years

Interpreter for the hearing-impaired, the ⁦ @ForwardPrizes ⁩ for Poetry, I can’t stop watching him. This is how poetry moves.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

I've been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences !!!!!!!

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

Patti Smiths!

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

4 years

Tulsa. Juneteenth.

Kaitlan Collins

@kaitlancollins

4 years

President Trump says his first rally since March 2nd will be in Tulsa, Oklahoma next Friday.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

3 years

My bestest baby boy left us this morning. Brady (BB, Bear, BradyBear, Booshka, Boobala, BeeBeesh, etc.,2009-2021), there will never be another dog like you.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

3 years

There's both gone. Rondo died in November, Brady died today. My heart is so utterly broken. It's even hard to breathe. But I've known huge, huge love.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

1 year

Beginning in the fall, I’ll join my astounding friend ⁦ @ilya_poet ⁩ as a full-time professor in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

4 years

Cancel the season(s): NBA, MBA, NFL, NHL, soccer, tennis, badminton, bid whist, doubledutch. The world is ablaze. White kids are planning field trips to hunt down and kill POC. We've nurtured and grown our first U.S. dictator. We've run out of time for games.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

3 years

Saddest day. Just got word that Beverly Cleary has died (at 104!). Thank you, maam, for narrating the best parts of my childhood. And thank you, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for THIS badass:

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

Felt cute, might delete later.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

5 years

In 2018, a scrawny kid from the West side of Chi won the Kingsley Tufts, an NAACP Image Award and the LA Times Book Prize—and was a finalist for the Neudstadt Prize & the Pulitzer. She’s finally learned to sing this life out loud. And she loves you.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

4 years

Student : You didn’t get my final portfolio??? I sent it twice!!! Me: No problem. Just resend it, along with a screenshot of your outbox showing that it was originally on time. Student: Student: [FIN]

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

3 years

From Billy Porter's GQ interview: "....another one of my mentors, George Wolfe, said: “You can't wait for anybody to give you permission to practice your art. You have to be practicing it all the time, even when no one is listening. And most of the time, no one is listening.”

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

6 years

To all you rabid confounded young’uns fist-pumping with the devil’s spawn—we have taken away your black card, your invitation to the reunion, your seat at the table, and your ancestors. We meant to take away your souls, but I see they’ve already been sold.

Power to the People ☭🕊

@ProudSocialist

6 years

The Republican party is showing off black voters on twitter WHILE simultaneously engaging in voter suppression in black neighborhoods. Things that make you go hmmmm. 🤔

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

3 years

Hey, wait a minute. If Antifa and BLM were the masterminds behind the Jan 6 insurrection, why wouldn't the Repubs want that proven once and for all? I wonder....

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

1 year

DO NOT MESS WITH MY STUDENTS. One of my lil' darlings has invented a single poem comprised of six (SIX) intricately woven sestinas. It's called a sestina braid, and it's a doozy. (And yes, she wrote one, and yes, she NAILED it.) Here, instructions for the envoi:

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

5 years

Well, we won the first election.

TIME

@TIME

5 years

British actor Idris Elba named People magazine's 'Sexiest Man Alive' in 2018

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

4 years

Rondo's heart stopped last night due to complications from the surgery. They couldn't save him. He was the silliest, most selfless, insanely loyal goof of a pooch. And he was the best boy.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

This is my friend Anna’s new doggo Gatsby. I’m speechless and I want him. In this pic, he IS autumn.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

1 month

I apologize if I don't respond to messages in a timely manner, or if I fail to respond at all. My mother has died. Some of you know that I've written about our perplexing relationship--but it turns out that grief hasn't heard those poems. I'll be back soon.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

5 years

I am grading. A student I’ve been BEGGING to use ANY figurative language wrote (about someone crying), “Your eyes flood like the garage after a rainstorm.” I AM SUPREMELY HAPPY.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

6 years

Penned an eerie, violent short story with a river as protagonist, and the editor loved it. Here I come, fiction, armed with poetry and a plot. Should be a blast.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

4 years

RIP to the last f**k @DrJasonJohnson had to give.

MSNBC

@MSNBC

4 years

Jason Johnson on protests following Breonna Taylor decision: "They are tired of these discussions being teased out in ways that give justifications for nothing other than state sponsored, white supremacy, and killing of Black people"

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

5 years

It’s the end of the semester—which means that students I’ve never seen before stride into class, sit in the front row and nod vigorously.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

1 month

Today I saw my mother's body for the last time. Glittering bronzer caked her eyelids and was swiped on her cheeks and jawline. Her lips were pulled into a tight line, as if she was considering a smile but had decided against it. She was Annie Pearl Smith of Aliceville, Alabama.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

1 year

Alice Walker. Jesmyn Ward. Angie Thomas. Sonia Sanchez. Nikole Hannah-Jones. Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Imani Perry. Paula Giddins. THEE Joanne Gabbin. Readings. Panels. PRAISING. If you're a Black poet (or an approved ally), here's what you're doing in November. You're welcome.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

My God.

The New Yorker

@NewYorker

2 years

From “A Spell to Banish Grief,” by @theferocity .

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

6 years

Kanye West doesn't care about black people.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

So haha, I gave my students a choice for their final portfolio--30/30, poems by midnight every day in April. Haha, I thought, no one will do it, because, you know--but THEY ARE ALL DOING IT AND THE POEMS ARE SO DAMN GOOD AND I'VE GOT SO MUCH READING TO DO, and I'm so happyyyyy

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

3 years

Please watch this.

NBC News

@NBCNews

3 years

WATCH: 107-year-old Viola Fletcher — the oldest survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre — tells Congress: “I'm here seeking justice, and I'm asking my country to acknowledge what happened in Tulsa in 1921 ... We, and our history, have been forgotten, washed away."

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

5 years

I’ve finished my new book twice. Starting over again today. I can do better.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

So. Thanks to the—uh, world—we had to delay a wee bit of our Xmas. But my husband just surprised me with a Fender Bullet Strat signed by Buddy Guy. Indeed he did.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

1 year

Is there any poet who would pay $100 to see? You can't resurrect anyone, and there's no opening act or musical accompaniment. Just that poet. 45 mins-1 hour. A c-note.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

4 years

This is metaphor for SO MANY THINGS.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

Please, NO MATTER WHAT YOU TEACH, stop to talk with your students about what's going on in Ukraine. You'd be shocked at how many of them think "that thing doesn't have anything to do with us, right?"

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

3 years

Apologies for shutting the door on life for a week. The pain of losing my boy Rondo goes deeper than I could have imagined. All love to those who sent messages meant to shoulder some of the sorrow. Of course, everyone thinks their dog is the best dog ever. And everyone is right.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

I need poems with titles beginning "How To---" In other words, poems that offer up instruction for something either concrete or abstract. Go to it, hive. I'm waiting.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

3 years

Thanks to every one of you—the storytellers, the rhyme schemers, the witnesses, my forever and always fam, and all those faceless bodies in the back of the room. Thanks for teaching me how to live this life out loud. Thanks for teaching me that poetry is merely everything.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

Gorgeous day, good friends, an incredible honor. Yesterday I received the Golden Rose Poetry Award, est. in 1919. My name will be the last one carved on the original case. Look closely, and you just may see the names of Robert Frost, Derek Walcott, Mary Oliver… 1/2

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

1 year

So there's a poet whose work you love. He is then accused of serial sexual assault. Is he now a poet you hate whose work you love or a poet you hate whose work you hate because of what he's done?

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

1 year

Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize-winning writer Patricia Smith Joins Princeton’s Creative Writing Faculty:

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

1 year

Name a poet who always, always, ALWAYS reads way past his allotted time. Relentlessly, unbothered and ALWAYS. Let us celebrate his celebrity and utter cluelessness. (And don’t worry, he’s not on Twitter.)

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

5 years

Tell me—what’s a poet’s purpose? What are we here to do?

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

4 years

We're working on ekphrastic poems, and one of my students is tackling this. It's a bull farting. Violently. So violently he has lifted a man out of his shoe and pinned him to the wall. I am--- --let's just say I'm waiting for that poem.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

4 years

Patricia Smith Named Editor of Miller Williams Poetry Series | University of Arkansas Send me great books!

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

Hey, it's my birthday. To celebrate with me, please donate something to someplace that believes women own their own bodies. (What a concept, huh?) Thank you.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

4 years

Thank you, NYT, for honoring me with a voice in this elegant and pivotal project.

How We Juneteenth (Published 2020)

This year, Juneteenth arrives at a moment of change in the United States. We celebrate, mourn, observe and learn.

www.nytimes.com

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

Ya girl could use hella good wishes today.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

1 year

Tomorrow.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

Stop. Think. We’re on this earth with Ocean Vuong. And @warsan_shire . And @mobrowne . And Nikky Finney. And @PoetEllenBass . And @JasonReynolds83 . And their work is out here, all beacon and aloud and lesson. Yes, our lives are in a tailspin. But oh, there be such blessing.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

I stayed up all night to see the eclipse at its peak. 4:02 am. What incidental splendor. I felt so small, so clearly at a juncture. Beside me was Rilke: “You must change your life.”

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

5 years

@realDonaldTrump I can smell your desperation from Jersey. And it’s a such a sweet, sweet stench.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

11 months

THIS THREAD IS WHY TWITTER MUST CONTINUE TO EXIST.

fooler initiative

@metroadlib

11 months

I LITERALLY stopped working on my memo so I could read this indictment. I am on page 24 and JESUS LUPITA NYONG'O CHRIST. HOW this man still has the capacity to shock me after everything that's happened, i'll never know. but I am sitting here *STUNNED*.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

3 years

Junie B. Jones vs. Judy Moody, huh? Y'all sleeping on Ramona? Ramona Quimby?

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

I'm going to save this for times when I need it. And there will be many, many times I will need it.

Kelly Canuck🍁

@KellyCanuckTO

2 years

This is the best sound in the world

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

1 year

The amazing @jenbenka and I once duked it out on a slam stage. THIRTY years later, she called to tell me this. What a blessing to join my friends and teachers. And congratulations to the rest of the new kids—Kimiko, Ilya and Ed!

Academy of American Poets

@POETSorg

1 year

We are honored to announce that Kimiko Hahn, Ilya Kaminsky @ilya_poet , Ed Roberson, and Patricia Smith @pswordwoman have been elected to the @POETSorg Board of Chancellors. Read more:

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

3 years

Your book will be amazing, it's your year for the Guggy, the residency will be revelatory, and you WILL get into that grad program or snag that dream job. Wishing you all that good, but I HAVE TO declare a moratorium on blurbs, refs and recs. Too many asks, dwindling time.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

6 years

@realDonaldTrump You are vile and soulless. Satan’s building a new wing in hell for you. I hear Mexico is paying for it.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

4 years

There are THREE poems in the NYT today. Arm yourself—our time is here.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

I’m “I saw Prince open for Rick James” old. How about you?

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

1 year

@theferocity @DanezSmith Girl, folks are CONSTANTLY mistaking me for Rita Dove—when everybody KNOWS I’m Rupi Kaur.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

4 years

We rep Chi and Detroit. We’ve been friends for 20 years. We were hired at CSI on exactly the same day. We admire, celebrate and trust in each other’s work. And today, I congratulate @TyehimbaJess —as he and I become Distinguished Professors for the City University of New York.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

4 years

Breonna Taylor’s name is no longer trending and the police that murdered her are still free. If you see this please reply/quote/tweet on your own. ARREST BRETT HANKISON, JONATHAN MATTINGLY & MYLES COSGROVE FOR THE MURDER OF #BREONNATAYLOR

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

10 months

Dropping in to thank @sewaneereview for this extraordinary distinction. Looking forward to the celebration this fall--and, thank you, thank you, thank you, @Dalai_Mama_ , for agreeing to join us.

The Sewanee Review

@sewaneereview

10 months

The Sewanee Review is pleased to announce that Patricia Smith is the recipient of the 2023 Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry. Poet and critic Joy Priest will lecture on Smith's poetry. Check out the full announcement here:

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

3 years

Ladies and gentlemen, I present Wrigley. She is a Labradane. She smells like cookies and sonnets. And yes, she is named after a prime slice of real estate in my home town.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

Me and my sister.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

5 years

Wouldn’t @Danez_Smif be a great Oscar host?

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

1 year

So this world-renowned poem person is bringing her "world tour" to my neighborhood. Will curiosity get the best of me? Will I buy tickets and sit through the pageantry so you won't have to?

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

4 years

Nothing rattles the social order more than a black woman in first class.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

1 year

Official AWP "Unshuttered" release party, 3/10 from 5 to 9 pm, Northwest African-American Museum, Seattle. Open wine bar, yummy food (shrimp and okra beignets!), private museum access & guest readers @kwamedawes , @poetess151 , @Dalai_Mama_ & @theferocity ! Please retweet!

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

4 years

I'm sorry. This dog. Those eyes. THOSE EYES.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

4 years

Help. I got so inspired tonight (darn you, @AngelNafis !) that I sat down and started writing a book. I'm 350 words in! It's fiction!

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

4 years

Wallowing in quarantine funk? Say you could use a little...POETRY?

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

I need: Revelatory poems about family--poems about difficult familial relationships, complicated or distant parents, absence of traditional love, acceptance of shortcomings... Go!

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

11 months

My daughter-in-law found one of the 150 numbered and signed copies of Sappho translated by William Carlos Williams. We’re trying to find out its value. Any ideas where/who to ask?

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

3 years

Day 1 over. Y’all, she’s as perfect as her brothers were.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

4 years

I just found out that my high school boyfriend died of multiple myeloma. It's amazing how raw grief can be, how powerfully that teenage joy and giddiness and feverish love can return, even after so much time, even after everything.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

4 years

This man has NO F**Ks left to give. Let the games begin.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

3 years

I love that I’m surrounded by brilliant people. You’re one of them. Yet none of you, as of yet, have adequately explained the errant bottle of Sweet Baby Ray’s on MetaBoy’s bookshelf.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

3 years

The world is so beautifully weird.

Kevin & Trevor

@KevinandTrevor

3 years

National Geographic photo of The year !

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

Choose your friends carefully.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

3 years

Ever see a Bernese Mountain Dog in heaven?

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

We'll adopt your baby.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

6 years

I know this whole friggin fiasco is a serous matter. But today I needed me some Samuel Jackson.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

5 years

For the first time last night, I read one of my short stories in its entirety in front of an audience. And because of the wide-open arms of the students and faculty at #vcfa , it wasn’t as terrifying as I thought it would be.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

5 years

Ah, the prophecy, at last, is fulfilled—I now live with two utterly adorable arthritic old guys.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

1 year

Phrasing changes, rejiggered line breaks, fussy fidgets with designers and editors, tweaks and tweaks. But, sooner or later, you've got to let her go. She's off to the printer. She'll be back on Feb. 15.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

3 years

Good news! John Lewis and RBG adopted my dog! He splits his heart between them.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

1 year

@xtian_as Broke.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

G A L L E Y !

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

4 years

There is innocence somewhere.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

1 year

Oh, yes. Everyday and everywhere and all the damn time—YES.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

6 years

This country disgusts me. And to those who say “Then leave!,” or “Go back to Africa!” (I’m REALLY tired of y’all, but whatever), be advised that poets can torch a landscape flat and clean. Stay in our way if you think you won’t burn. #incendiary

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

3 years

You want to be me because I just shared almost two hours with @DanezSmith , trading poems and insight and a whole buncha love.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

Line from my syllabus: “I am fun until you make me not fun.”

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

Wow. I mean WOW. This unexpected bit of business upended my day in a spectacular way. My gratitude to the Academy—what an honor to find my name alongside so many of my heroes.

American Academy of Arts & Sciences

@americanacad

2 years

Congratulations to the newly elected members of the American Academy! Today we are honored to welcome 261 exceptional individuals - including artists, scholars, scientists, and leaders in the public, non-profit, and private sectors - into the Academy.

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Patricia Smith

@pswordwoman

2 years

Best bday in a long time—an overload of sun, slushy gin concoctions, a joyous doggo, Motown music, forbidden eats on the grill, and family loving like family does. Ol’ lady smooches to all of you who sent me smiling into this next year. Now let’s go get our bodies back.

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