PATRICIA SMITH is four-time National Poetry Slam Individual Champion. Her poetry collections include Blood Dazzler (2008); Teahouse of the Almighty (2006), chosen for the 2005 National Poetry Series; Big Towns, Big Talk (2002); Close to Death (1998); and Life According to Motown (1991).  Smith's poems have been published in The Paris Review, TriQuarterly, AGNI and other literary journals, and in the anthologies Bum Rush the Page, The Garden Thrives, Children Remember Their Fathers, The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, Aloud: Voices from Nuyorican Poets Café, Revival: Spoken Word from Lollapalooza, and Unsettling America, among others. An author of prose as well poetry, Smith wrote Africans in America, a chronicle of slavery in this country and the companion volume to the four-part PBS series. Smith is a staff instructor at Cave Canem, was the McEver Chair in Writing at Georgia Tech University in 2004, and has taught poetry and memoir writing at New York’s Writers Voice. In 2006, she was inducted into the International Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent.