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37-612: From 1990 to 2007, the National Poetry Slam held an "individual" poetry competition (known as "indies") simultaneously with the team competition, with the poets earning the highest ranking individual poems during the first two days of competition moving on the semifinal and final rounds. The first ever winner of this event was Patricia Smith , who would go on to win the Individual National Poetry Slam Championship title four times,

74-542: A Pulitzer Prize after the newspaper acknowledged that some of her columns contained fabricated people, events, and quotes. Patricia Smith was born in 1955 in Chicago, Illinois. She attended Southern Illinois University and Northwestern University. Smith is married to Bruce DeSilva , journalist and Edgar Award -winning author. She lives in Howell, New Jersey . National Book Festival The National Book Festival

111-560: A charismatic slam and performance poet whose artistry truly survives on the printed page." She authored a book of history, Africans in America: American's Journey through Slavery, that was commissioned to accompany a PBS series of the same name, and which included short passages written by Charles Johnson and the WGBH Series Research Team. Her collection Incendiary Art grapples with black bodies of

148-479: A commitment to her writing. Smith discusses how she had written four poetry books before admitted into an MFA program. Though the MFA program taught her the "bones and muscles of language," the poet claims she established herself as a poet and her content way before her academic studies. Smith responds to Leuzzi's question about attending an MFA program later in life by affirming the freedom she had in academics because she

185-635: A core faculty member in the MFA program at Sierra Nevada University, and a resident in VONA and in the Vermont College of Fine Arts Post-Graduate Residency Program. Smith's poetry has appeared in literary journals including The Paris Review and TriQuarterly , and dozens of anthologies , including The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry , The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry and Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem's First Decade . She has read her poetry at venues including

222-525: A new era of poetry in the film documentary SlamNation . Smith has contributed to various notable anthologies including Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry, Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café , Short Fuse: The Global Anthology of New Fusion Poetry , Bum Rush the Page , The Oxford Anthology of African American Poetry and Pushcart Prize XXXII: Best of

259-489: A news conference announcing the inaugural event, Billington said: "We must all try, in every way we can, to send the message that reading is critical to our lives and to the life of our nation." The first National Book Festival took place on September 8, 2001, at the Library of Congress and on the east lawn of the U.S. Capitol. The event featured more than 60 award-winning authors, illustrators and storytellers from across

296-559: A record she shares with Ed Mabrey. Starting in 2004, Poetry Slam Inc (PSI) decided to host a separate event called the Individual World Poetry Slam (iWPS), in which solo poets (not teams of poets) competed for the championship title. The first iWPS was held in Greenville, SC under the direction of Kimberly Simms and the first iWPS champion was Buddy Wakefield . Because of the popularity of iWPS and to avoid

333-623: A week-long series of performances at New York's Harlem Stage. A selection of Smith's poetry was produced as a one-woman play by Nobel Prize-winner Derek Walcott and performed at both Boston University Playwrights Theater and the historic Trinidad Theater Workshop. Another play, based on Life According to Motown , was staged by Company One Theater in Hartford, Ct. , and reviewed favorably in The New York Times . In an interview with Tony Leuzzi (a poet known for his Fib poetry and

370-618: Is an American poet, spoken-word performer , playwright, author, writing teacher, and former journalist. She has published poems in literary magazines and journals including TriQuarterly , Poetry , The Paris Review , Tin House , and in anthologies including American Voices and The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry. She is on the faculties of the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing and

407-705: Is an annual literary festival held in Washington, D.C. in the United States ; it is organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress , and was founded by Laura Bush and James H. Billington in 2001. In 1995, the First Lady of Texas Laura Bush (a librarian ) founded the Texas Book Festival with Mary Margaret Farabee and support of Robert S. Martin , then Director and Librarian of

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444-733: The Boston Globe . Her many accomplishments include a Guggenheim fellowship , acceptance as a Civitellian, a National Endowment for the Arts grant recipient, and two-time winner of the Pushcart Prize. She is a former fellow of Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, and she is the most successful poet of the National Poetry Slam competition. Currently, Smith is a professor at the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University,

481-603: The Chicago Sun-Times in the late 1980s, she wrote a review of a concert that she allegedly had not attended. She gained notoriety when The Boston Globe asked her to resign after editors discovered her metro column contained fictional characters and fabricated events in violation of journalism practice. Smith admitted to four instances of fabrications in her columns, and Globe management indicated that it believed another 52 of Smith's columns involved fictional characters. Speaking in 2015 of her subsequent career,

518-476: The Globe editor who discovered her fabrications, Walter V. Robinson, noted: "The fact of the matter is that in life, for all of us, we are judged very much by how we bounce back from adversity.... In that sense, I'm really heartened by what's happened in her life." Her book Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah was awarded the 2014 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt Award . She is also a 2008 National Book Award finalist, winner of

555-1001: The Hurston-Wright Legacy Award in Poetry, the Carl Sandburg Literary Award , the National Poetry Series award, the Patterson poetry award, two Pushcart Prizes, and the Rattle poetry prize. She also won the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award for short story writing and had work selected to appear in both Best American Poetry and Best American Essays . In 2006, she was inducted into the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent, and she

592-676: The Texas State Library and Archives Commission and other volunteers. The goal of the festival was to honor Texas authors, promote the joys of reading, and benefit the state's public libraries. The first Texas Book Festival took place in November 1996. As First Lady of the United States , Laura Bush worked with Librarian of Congress James H. Billington to create the National Book Festival. At

629-1108: The U.S. Capitol and the National Mall . A new addition to the Festival was the Pavilion of the States which highlighted regional books. The 2003 National Book Festival attracted a crowd of more than 60,000 to the National Mall. Two new pavilions, Home & Family and Poetry, were added to the event. The 2008 National Book Festival attracted a crowd of more than 120,000 visitors and about 70 well known authors, illustrators and poets. Participating authors included: Tiki Barber , Mary Brigid Barrett, Jan Brett , Geraldine Brooks , Sandra Brown , Dan Chiasson , Eleanor Clift , Philippa Gregory , Steven Kellogg , Katherine Paterson , Salman Rushdie , Bob Schieffer , Jon Scieszka , Alexander McCall Smith , R. L. Stine , and Gordon S. Wood . Laura Bush served as honorary chair of

666-425: The 1960s, recounting lessons learned through the hardships and glamour of Motown. After Life According to Motown, Smith published Big Towns, Big Talks which serves as a type of sequel to its predecessor, examining life after childhood in Chicago. In September 1993, Smith published Close to Death, which explores black male life expectancy in relation to homicide, drug abuse, and AIDS. Smith's poems give voice to

703-719: The 2018 Kingsley Tufts ( Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Awards ) poetry award and the 2018 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Poetry . The collection also won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for poetry. Smith won the Distinguished Writing Award for Commentary from the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE), 1997. However, The Boston Globe returned the ASNE award and withdrew her from consideration for

740-590: The African-American community against the backdrop of the killing of Emmett Till . This collection uses various forms of poetry such as prose, ghazels, sestinas, and sonnets. In Gotta Go Gotta Flow , Patricia Smith combines her poems with Michael Abramson's photography of the '70s in Chicago's South Side. Donna Seman from Booklist praised this collection, saying that it is "a supremely arresting and affecting match of potent images and singing words." For Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah , Smith won three awards:

777-700: The Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the Rebekah Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, and the Phillis Wheatley Book Award in Poetry. The collection contains poems about the urban areas of Chicago and Detroit, discussing themes of first love, Motown, personal narrative, and cultural journey. Gregory Orr, judge of the 2014 Lenore Marshal Prize, said that her poems "plunge to the soul-depths of the people who inhabit them." As an editorial assistant at

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814-550: The Low-Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at Sierra Nevada University . She is a four-time individual National Poetry Slam champion and appeared in the 1996 documentary SlamNation , which followed various poetry slam teams as they competed at the 1996 National Poetry Slam in Portland, Oregon . Patricia Smith is hailed as the first African-American woman to publish a weekly metro column for

851-600: The National Basketball Association's national reading campaign, "Read to Achieve." The first National Book Fair attracted between 25,000 and 30,000 visitors. The Center for the Book provides "Great Reads from Great Places" book lists. The 2002 Festival featured more than 70 authors, illustrators and storytellers from across the country and hosted more than 45,000 visitors on the West Lawn of

888-875: The Poets Stage in Stockholm , Urban Voices in South Africa, Rotterdam's Poetry International Festival , the Aran Islands International Poetry and Prose Festival and on tour in Germany, Austria and Holland. In the U.S., she's performed at the National Book Festival , Carnegie Hall , and the Dodge Poetry Festival . The book Blood Dazzler was the basis for a dance/theater production which sold out

925-522: The Small Presses . In addition to her personal works, she also offers individual and group rates for poetry instruction from kindergarteners to senior citizens. As her first book, Patricia Smith published Life According to Motown in September 1991 and now it has been republished for the 20th anniversary edition . Like much of her poetry, this collection draws upon her roots in Chicago during

962-688: The confusion of two "individual" poetry slam titles being awarded ever year, Poetry Slam Inc. decided to cancel the "indie" competition at the National Poetry Slam. In 2016, the competition was held in Flagstaff, Arizona . In 2017, it was held in Spokane, WA and in 2018-2019 it was held in San Diego, CA. When PSI dissolved, the name was taken by the Dallas Poetry Slam who planned to organize the event in 2020. After being derailed for years by

999-514: The country, including Stephen Ambrose , Natalie Babbitt , Robin Cook , Billy Collins , Sue Grafton , Larry L. King , David Levering Lewis , David McCullough , Walter Mosley , Katherine Patterson , Richard Peck , Gary Soto , and Scott Turow . Additional activities included book-signings, musical performances, storytelling, panel discussions, demonstrations of illustration and new technologies. Fifteen NBA players attended as representatives of

1036-561: The festival from 2001 through 2008. In 2009 Barack Obama and Michelle Obama served as honorary co-chairs. After 12 years on the National Mall, the National Book Festival moved indoors to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in 2014. More than 200,000 people attended the 2013 National Book Festival and, following that event, the National Park Service implemented new protocols and requirements to avoid damage to

1073-801: The festival-goers would be better served by moving it into the convention center." The move indoors allowed the Festival to expand into night-time events, cookbook demonstrations, and screenings of film adaptations of books. The Literary Director at the Library of Congress is Clay Smith. Highlights of all the past festivals beginning in 2001 are at the Library of Congress website. The 2024 National Book Festival will take place on August 24. Main Stage speakers include Sandra Cisneros , James S.A. Corey , Doris Kearns Goodwin , Max Greenfield , Tamron Hall , Abby Jimenez , Casey McQuiston , James McBride , James Patterson , Lish Steiling and Rebecca Yarros . Many events will be live-streamed. Every year since 2002,

1110-466: The grass on the National Mall. Stephen Lorenzetti, the Park Service's deputy superintendent for planning at the National Mall and Memorial Parks , said: "There are new procedures to make sure that the grass survives. This can make it more expensive for events to take place.... We worked closely with the library to allow the festival to continue at a reasonable cost. We showed them how they might use

1147-475: The pandemic, iWPS is rumored to return in 2023 under new leadership. The tournament has two days of preliminary rounds, in which poets compete in 1, 2, 3, and 4 minute bouts. After these 4 bouts are completed, the poet's rankings in each bout are added up and the top 12 poets of the tournament are invited to compete in the final round. A 3 minute time limit is applied to the poems in the final round. Patricia Smith (poet) Patricia Smith (born 1955)

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1184-524: The poem "The Burning Door""), Smith talks about how she started writing poetry. She says: "I got introduced to poetry via the stage, where there isn't a place to crawl behind the language." Smith talks about her first Chicago slam poetry night where she performed her poems for the first time. This scene became Smith's social circle as well as her recreational exercise, but after performing for a while, people began to view Smith's poems as literature rather than just performance. These people challenged Smith to make

1221-512: The role of poetry. The poem "Boy Dies, Girlfriend Gets His Heart" is about an actual event where a fifteen-year-old boy gave his heart to his girlfriend, and in another poem, Smith discusses her views on religion and her Baptist upbringing. Many critics have praised this work: Diane Scharper in Library Journal called it a "stunning mix of sound and sense and a Publishers Weekly critic stated: "Smith appears to be that rarest of creatures,

1258-609: The thousands of black males in New York City, Chicago, and Boston who have run out of options and expect to die without first given a chance to live. Publishers Weekly says, "Her acute ear for the intricacies of speech adds to the vitality of poems written in the voice of black men she encounters amid the inner-city squalor of Chicago and Boston." Her Teahouse of the Almighty is a collection of her free-verse poems on various topics such as love, family, religion, feminism, and

1295-454: The walkways and the roadways. But in the end, the library decided that it was more affordable to move to a different venue. We respect their decision." Jennifer Gavin, project manager of the Library of Congress National Book Festival, confirmed the reason for the change of venue, saying: "We spent months working with the Park Service to see if we could make this work.... But when we looked at the costs — and they were considerable — we decided that

1332-468: Was already an established and published poet, so Smith did not need to go after grants and awards or university validation. In addition to her poetry and journalism, Patricia Smith is also a performer in two one-woman plays and in a one-woman show called Professional Suicide. In Priya Parmar and Bryonn Bain's article "Spoken Word and Hip Hop: The Power of Urban Art and Culture", the authors argue that Smith along with Taylor Mali and Saul Williams ushered in

1369-775: Was the recipient of both McDowell and Yadoo fellowships. For Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah she won the Lenore Marshall Prize , presented by the Academy of American Poets in recognition of "the most outstanding book of poetry" published in America the previous year. And "Incendiary Art" won the NAAACP Image Award and was named a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. "Incendiary Art," a 2017 collection of poems published by Northwestern University Press won

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