Slam poet Danez Smith to perform at Bridgewater College Oct. 13

Award-winning author and slam poet Danez Smith will perform his work on Thursday, Oct. 13, at 7:30 p.m. in Cole Hall at Bridgewater College. The program is free and open to the public.

Smith, who employs powerful words and energy to address topics such as sexuality and race, has been awarded the Lambda Literary Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. In 2011, Smith was an Individual World Poetry Slam finalist and the reigning two-time Rustbelt Individual Champion. Three years later he became a member of the championship team, Sad Boy Supper Club.

Smith is also a founding member of the Dark Noise Collective, an assemblage of the literary world’s best multicultural spoken-word artists. He has authored two books, [insert] boy and Black Movie.

“Creating art that is deeply personal, bluntly political and charged with gut-wrenching honesty – and at the same time inspiring that same reaction in other people – has become the driving force of my journey with education, spoken work and theater,” said Smith. “Finding the places where we intersect each other, where we intersect ourselves and where we divide has become the focal point of my work, giving way to writing and performance that is personal as well as universal, leading the audience and myself on a journey, leaving us questioning ourselves, asking ‘what do we do next?’”

Bridgewater College is a private, four-year liberal arts college located in the Central Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Founded in 1880, it was the state’s first private, coeducational college. Today, Bridgewater College is home to nearly 1,900 undergraduate students.