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1. Me, age 12 Sure that I was dying, that I'd died, that the gush of iron smell and black thick splash signaled all my sin gone wide, I pried open the thin, wobbly back of a record cabinet and [...]

Some lamp sputters its dusty light across a desk. Some hand, in a fever, works the fraying brown hemp, twisting and knifing, weaving, tugging tight this bellowing circle. Randy Travis sings, [...]

Patricia Smith is a journalist, biographer, and poet who lives in New York City. She was National Individual Poetry Slam Champion for 1990, 1991, 1993, and was a member of the 1993 National [...]

I don’t understand what drove me to the rhythm. My mother behind a closed door, locked and bolted from her side, failing to separate us, keeping only my body out. And from beneath that door, I [...]