Before Danez Smith takes the stage, the room is quiet. The audience is well-behaved, attentive, indulgent, but noncommittal. The introductions finish. The featured speakers finish. Those who are familiar with Smith’s work know that this subdued atmosphere is about to change.

As Smith takes the stage, they own it. Their powerful voice and presence fills the space to its capacity and they say, “So, this is how this is gonna work, right? Um, I don’t do quiet really well. I sleep loud, I snore like a mother****** I’ve never really been quiet throughout my days. And I don’t really like my audiences quiet either, okay? So, um, feel free to snap, clap, hoot, holler, cuss, slap your neighbor, whatever happens—whatever – not really, please don’t… […] But feel free to give as much energy as possible, the more energy y’all give the more energy performers give back to you, as a general rule.”

As they continue, Smith’s voice grows louder, faster; they use their hands to punctuate their words, the rhyme and the rhythm are unmistakable, the passion almost unbearable, the expression in their eyes becomes intense and is mirrored back by the audience. Their voice, their face, their words; everything comes together and causes the audience to laugh, yell, snap, nod, think.

In a 2016 interview for Public Books, Isaac Ginsberg Miller said this about Smith: “Smith embodies the coming together of the worlds of literary poetry and spoken word, a convergence whose effects have yet to be fully seen or understood but that surely represents one of the most significant forces in the present and future of US poetry.”

Danez Smith began their poetry career as a spoken word artist, participating in communities such as Brave New Voices, which is the largest ongoing spoken word event in the world. They are a founding member of Dark Noise Collective, which in their own words is “a multiracial, multi-genre collective featuring some of the most exciting, insightful, and powerful spoken word artists performing today.” Smith is also a 2-time finalist of the Individual World Poetry Slam, and 3-time winner of the Rustbelt Poetry slam competition.

Today, as Miller notes, Smith has expanded from their roots as a spoken word artist and now has published chapbooks and poetry collections. They are the author of two chapbooks: hands on your knees (2013) and black movie (2015), and two poetry collections: [insert] boy (2014), and Don’t Call Us Dead (2017). The two collections have appeared on the syllabi of various TCNJ English and creative writing courses.

About transitioning from spoken word to written poetry, Smith said, “That was a little daunting for me, thinking about people having a collection of my work that my physical voice is not attached to at all.” Without Smith’s physical voice attached to their poetry, it becomes an entirely different medium. The structure of a poem is different when it is written, and the author must think more of how a poem looks on a page and less of how it sounds when expressed orally.

However, Smith found a way to incorporate their voice into the written poems as well. In an interview with divedapper they said, “I think it’s made me a better poet, a simpler poet. I’ve learned a lot about putting personality and the body into words. It’s been a constant question of how to capture all that can be communicated live.”

On October 19th 2017 Danez Smith visited TCNJ campus to give a talk and poetry reading. Preceding their arrival they wrote on Instagram: “Neeeeew Jersey! I'll be at TCNJ tomorrow! 7:30, Library Auditorium! I'll bring the [fire image], you bring you. Yo mama & yo cousin too.”

Even while using the medium of written words, Smith’s interaction with an audience is still important to them, and plays a critical role in how they function as an artist. Social media is key to this type of audience participation. It is one thing to have a live audience, who can react with snaps or verbal responses, but reactions to Smith’s poetry via social media is allowed to be much more precise.

In an interview with Rigoberto Gonzalez for Critical Mass, Smith said, “Thanks to social media, I’m lucky to get to hear responses to my work a lot, for the good and the bad.” These responses are particularly important given the nature of Smith’s poetry, which deals with incendiary subject matter such as queerness, the HIV disease, and violence against African Americans. This communication is important because the people who relate or are personally affected by Smith’s subject matter can express their opinions thereon and potentially contribute to the larger movement of social change.

Clearly, the engagement of an audience is central to Smith’s art. Whether it is spoken or written, there are ways to communicate and respond to the ideas they present. Their performance at TCNJ demonstrates the symbiotic relationship that can exist between a speaker and an audience.