Patricia Smith

The Carnegie Mellon University Center for the Arts in Society presents Award-Winning Poet and Performer

Patricia Smith

Reading and Booksigning
Thursday, November 9
5 PM
Maggie Murph Café, Hunt Library
Carnegie Mellon University Campus
FREE and open to the public

Smith is a four-time National Poetry Slam champion, a co-author of the Africans in America companion book to the PBS television series, and has been featured on the HBO series Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry. Smith will be performing her poetry and signing copies of her fourth book of poetry, Teahouse of the Almighty, which was a winner of the 2005 National Poetry Series and was published this year with Coffee House Press. Teahouse of the Almighty will be available for sale at the event.

Smith’s other books of poetry include Close to Death (Zoland 1993), Big Towns, Big Talk (Zoland 1992), and Life According to Motown (Tía Chucha 1991). Smith’s poems have been published in The Paris Review, TriQuarterly, AGNI and other literary journals, and she has served as a Cave Canem faculty member. Critic E. Ethelbert Miller says of her work:
“Smith writes the way Tina Turner sings.”

The Hunt Library is the aluminum and glass building located on Carnegie Mellon campus on Frew Street, at the opposite end of the quad from the campus’ Forbes Avenue entrance. Metered parking is available along Frew Street. Free parking after 5 PM is available at the Carnegie Mellon East End Garage, accessible from Forbes Avenue. A campus map is available
at: http://www.cmu.edu/home/visitors/map/university.html

The event is sponsored by the Carnegie Mellon University Center for the Arts in Society, the Humanities Scholars Program, the Center for African American Urban Studies and the Economy (CAUSE), and the Creative Writing Program.

For more information, visit http://www.hss.cmu.edu/CAS/