Clint Smith, poetry

Clint Smith is a 23 year-old poet, edu­ca­tor, and activist from New Orleans, LA in the United States. He grad­u­ated from David­son Col­lege in May 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in Eng­lish. At David­son, Clint was the founder and pres­i­dent of Free­Word, Davidson’s first and only slam poetry team. In the very first year of the group’s exis­tence, Clint led David­son to the semi-finals of the Col­lege Union Slam Poetry Invi­ta­tional, the pre­mier national com­pe­ti­tion for col­lege slam poets. Upon grad­u­at­ing from David­son, Clint has spent the past year in Soweto, South Africa work­ing to edu­cate youth in the town­ship about HIV/AIDS by engag­ing them in sport and spo­ken word. He has per­formed his work at slams, work­shops, and poetry fes­ti­vals through­out the United States and across south­ern Africa, win­ning mul­ti­ple com­pe­ti­tions and hav­ing his work pub­lished in sev­eral lit­er­ary publications.

Clint cur­rently teaches High School Eng­lish in Wash­ing­ton D.C. as a mem­ber of Teach for Amer­ica. Clint believes that slam poetry presents an impor­tant plat­form to dis­cuss a vari­ety of impor­tant issues in our soci­ety. “While spo­ken word cer­tainly doesn’t always have to be socially or polit­i­cally ori­ented,” he says “it does pro­vide a unique oppor­tu­nity to tell the sto­ries of those who have no voice. It can also give insight into the human expe­ri­ence by con­tex­tuliz­ing each of our lives rel­a­tive to those around us. It’s a dynamic art­form that chal­lenges our per­cep­tions and con­tin­u­osly allows us to think out­side of our­selves. I’m grate­ful to be a part of some­thing that has the poten­tial to be so trans­for­ma­tive in how peo­ple per­cieve the world around them.”

Aside from poetry, Clint loves his mom, soc­cer, scrab­ble, libraries, play­ing Xbox late at night with his room­mates, doc­u­men­taries, being chased by his lit­tle cousins, pre­tend­ing he knows how to play the piano, and the feel­ing you have right after you eat way too many bbq ribs.

You can find more of Clint Smith’s work by search­ing “clint smith poetry” on YouTube. Clint can be reached at cwardsmith@gmail.com.