Patricia Smith is a Renaissance “Wordwoman” — a nationally renowned performance poet, four-time National Poetry Slam champion, energetic teacher of creative writing and the author of four poetry collections, including Teahouse of the Almighty, which Poetry Guide Bob Holman selected as our 2006 Book of the Year.

Here are links to a few places where you can read, listen to and see her work performed live online:

• Two of her poems are posted here at About Poetry: “Left Memories” (read at the 2001 Community-Word Project benefit) and “You need to know Chicago if you’re going to learn to miss her” (her memorial poem for Gwendolyn Brooks).
• Three recorded performances are posted on her own Web site: “Siblings,” “Medusa” and “Spinning.”
• A biographical essay on Smith and audio recordings of seven of her poems form the first chapter of Kurt Heintz’s Book of Voices.
• A number of her performances are posted at YouTube: “Skinhead” from Def Poetry Jam, “Sixth Grade Class,” “Scribe,” plus a collection of live videos from The Hampshire College Slam Collection and a brand-new performance (April 2008) from Urbana Slam at the Bowery Poetry Club.
• “Building Nicole’s Mama” is at Richard Jeffrey Newman’s “It’s All Connected” blog.
• “Listening at the Door” is #68 at Poetry365.
• Modern American Poetry’s Patricia Smith page has commentary, a couple of her poems and several of her newspaper columns written for The Boston Globe.

To purchase Smith’s books, use these shopping links:

• Life According to Motown (poems, Tia Chucha Press, 1991)
  
• Big Towns, Big Talk (poems, Zoland Books, 1992)
  
• Close to Death (poems, Zoland Books, 1993)
  
• Africans in America (companion book to PBS series, with Charles Johnson, Harcourt, 1998)
  
• Janna and the Kings (children’s story, illustrated by Aaron Boyd, Lee & Low Books, 2003)
  
• Teahouse of the Almighty (poems, University of Wisconsin Press, 2007)
  

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