Thunder in the basement: Patricia Smith reads at Labyrinth Books

Creative writing professor Patricia Smith set the basement of Labyrinth Books alight on Thursday with a reading of her new poetry collection “The Intentions of Thunder,” performing with words that struck like lightning.

Held in Labyrinth Books’ basement, the event featured a low ceiling, small stage, folding chairs, and a podium amid the store’s used and antiquarian book collections. A popular event, the crowd squeezed into the small room, brushing against professors, friends, and familiar faces.

Eliana Du ’28, one of Smith’s former creative writing students, opened the event with a few poems of her own. Delivered with poise and confidence, her poetry’s imagery of water and transcendence left the room in awe. There were smiling faces throughout the audience, but Smith had the biggest grin as she watched her former student perform her poetry. Du is the former head Cartoons editor for The Daily Princetonian.

Smith prefaced her reading by commenting on the process of selecting these poems from her existing work. She joked that revisiting moments from her life and emerging from the other side made her feel her age, to laughter in the audience. Along with selections from her previous works, there are two new poems present in “The Intentions of Thunder” that reflect on her age with strength and delight.

After a brief silence, Smith’s booming voice shook the room. A testament to the power of her work, each poem elicited a round of applause — uncommon in poetry readings.

Smith’s poems had the audience laughing and sighing all at once, bouncing from era to era of her poetry career: the personification of Hurricane Katrina from “Blood Dazzler,” published in 2008; some about her father, like “Sweet Daddy”; and most poignantly, a letter to her history titled “Salutations, In Search Of.”

“Salutations, In Search Of” traces centuries of Black history: salutations to enslaved people, the Harlem Renaissance, victims of police brutality, and finally, to “anyone who wakes up without a sun.” When writing the poem, Smith said she had to start and restart multiple times, overwhelmed with the number of subjects and topics to tackle. Likewise, midway through the poem, she described ripping a page in half and repeating herself, signifying the never-ending cycle of history.

Smith’s work reflects the condition of a poet, never ceasing to write but not seeing much change, having to repeat oneself over and over again throughout the ages. This element of her poetry contributed to a sense of timelessness, allowing the selections to flow seamlessly into one another somewhat tragically.

Many of Smith’s works read on Thursday — as well as in her broader corpus — dealt with struggles related to the Black experience in America. Her reading was received with emphatic nods, numerous “mm-hmms,” and a prolonged final round of applause. As she left the podium after thanking the audience, people rushed to line up for her signing. Stepping into the quiet night, I realized my ears were still ringing from a voice like thunder.

Michael Grasso is a contributing writer for The Prospect and a member of the Class of 2029. He can be reached at mg7604[at]princeton.edu.

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