Poetry
In 2006, she worked with community activist Ashara Ekundayo and poets Ken Arkind and Panama Soweto to launch Slam Nuba, which quickly became one of the nation's most highly ranked poetry slams.
In 2007, she collaborated with Belgian group Psy'Aviah on their single 'Moments', which was a finalist in the BBC's 'Next Big Thing' Contest and was later released on their debut, 'Entertainment Industries'. The video was released and received 3 million views in 3 months, and was subsequently banned from youtube.com due to their claim that the content was 'explicit'. The video's ban received attention in the national press in Belgium, including Het Laatste Nieuws, De Morgen, and Gazet Van Antwerpen.
In 2008, she released a spoken word album entitled Picks, Pistols, and Prayers, featuring the title track dedicated to Huey P. Newton. In 2011, she released her second spoken word album entitled "Re-Mixed", a collaborative music project featuring the work of several producers from around the world, most notably Henry Harding. Her third spoken word album, "Black Hole Mouth" was released in January 2013.
Currently, Smith resides in Denver, CO with her daughter. She performs poetry and music throughout the U.S. in addition to leading workshops in learning environments that range from schools to detention centers.
Read more about this topic: Suzi Q. Smith
Famous quotes containing the word poetry:
“I by no means rank poetry high in the scale of intelligence—this may look like affectation but it is my real opinion. It is the lava of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earthquake.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Do you know how poetry started? I always think that it started when a cave boy came running back to the cave, through the tall grass, shouting as he ran, “Wolf, wolf,” and there was no wolf. His baboon-like parents, great sticklers for the truth, gave him a hiding, no doubt, but poetry had been born—the tall story had been born in the tall grass.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)