t love smith
What do you write?
Poetry, lyrical essay, memoir, creative nonfiction, but right now, mostly grant proposals. :)
Is there an author or artist who has most profoundly influenced your work?
Ani Difranco, a queer folksinger/songwriter, poet who started her own, extremely successful record label when she was a teenager and most recently she was in Hadestown on Broadway.
Why did you choose Stonecoast for your MFA?
Stonecoast has inspired me since it first opened. I was at USM at the time but wasn't ready to take my writing seriously. I had a friend who always inspired me who graduated from the program. This has been a goal for a long time.
What is your favorite Stonecoast memory?
Through great fortune I arrived at Stonecoast with a cosmic cohort of writers who all clicked immediately. Most of my best memories involve sharing meals with this crew who are queer and non-traditional and intergenerational and influential in amazing ways.
What do you hope to accomplish in the future?
Of course, I hope to publish a book or two of poems and maybe publish in other genres but more than that, I hope to build a foundation that raises money to support trans artists and writers through publications, scholarships, retreats, fellowships, literally the literary works!
If you could have written one book, story, or poem that already exists, which would you choose?
“The Sun Never Says” ~ Hafiz
Outside Today
It’s a type of morning makes ice of bone marrow.
A few shovel scoops of wet powder over the shoulder,
the marrow heavies—slush. Balmy becomes lip sweat
in whisps of blonde whiskers you sometimes wish
were darker brown to make your androgyny visible,
belt out in tune, Can you see me now!? Interrobang!
interrobang?
There may well be eighty-one billion or more interrobangs
and there’s half that amount of smackers in the slack
pocket of the “Richest Man Here.” As our bones erode
under our linens, crack and spill like milk to linoleum
from source. Steam the kettle and whistle out
the silhouette of a survivor body. When the light
gets stuck in your throat due to obstruction build up,
Spit it out! What you have been holding onto, and for what,
for so long, for shame-induced pride, for lies, for what?