24/30: Suzi Q. Smith, 30 Poets in Their 30s.

A mentor of mine once perfectly summed up why the phenomenon of hipsterdom so troubled him: neverending irony. As poets, sincerity is one of the best things we have going for us. A kind of world-weary [self-]critical voice can be quite powerful, but I think making a habit of it can make one's work less relevant.

Suzi Q. Smith would likely agree. She's among the most earnest poets I know in our age range – and being earnest can be a serious challenge once you pass the 30 mark. I respect Smith's doggedness in this regard: she goes after emotional truth, to its core, no matter how troubling the implications may be. That kind of strength and resiliency are essential to becoming a great writer, and one who stays with the craft even when the work gets ugly and hard. Smith is one to watch, and I think the poem below shows why.

*

My Father's Hands

The sun was 3:30 low
and hot
and so and so
had said such and such
about our mama
or our daddy
and we couldn’t say
for sure
whether or not it was true
but we rolled four deep
and were not going easy

so when the mob
of children
met us at the corner
we were ready,
all of us
with our father’s hands
balled into stone and swing,
our grandmother’s holler
talking slick and mean
from each mouth,
our mother’s laugh,
canyons away from us.

We were born to fight.
We did not learn.
We have always known.
Even when everyone was bigger
and more, the hands
knew how to fist, the holler
knew when to howl, the laughter
knew when to grimace into menacing
forgiveness.
This is true.
This is science.
This is the holiest magic.

One long night
so late it would have been morning,
the sun swallowed
its own face.
In fact, all of the light
had gone from the world.
These father hands were dead fish,
this grandmother holler a choke,
this mother laugh a hunting hyena.

Some hands
some holler bigger
than my holler,
some laugh bigger than my
begging,
some want
bigger
than my God
of knuckles
and bite.

I put my hands in my mouth
and chewed,
reached down into my throat
and pulled.
I sat like this,
useless hands and holler
endlessly swallowing my sounds.
I became
an eternity of whispers,
a heaven of new fingers,
the echo of my own open mouth.

*

Suzi Q. Smith lives with her brilliant daughter in Denver, Colorado. She lives her life writing and performing poetry throughout the U.S. and teaching with youth organizations in and around Denver. Her work has appeared in The Peralta Press (Alehouse Press), In Our Own Words (Burning Bush Publications), Word is Bond (Unblind Communications), His Rib: Anthology of Women (Penmanship Books), Malpais Review, Diverse-City Anthology (Austin Poets International), The Pedestal Magazine, The Los Angeles Journal, La Palabra, and Denver Syntax.

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