I’m happy when I’ve got a little project. I like making things.

I’ve always been a watcher, and I think about what I’ve seen. Sometimes this results in an object. Sometimes I try to get at it with words.  When I’m lucky, something will take my thinking—take me—to a new place and I get to see what’s in the weeds.

At times, there’s no thinking, there’s just looking, and lauding, and that becomes the project.

Recently, I’ve been collaborating with the  composer and jazz musician, Paul Finley, to create duets using prose and piano: words and music in conversation, another way to get at it and another happy project.

Recent Works

GOD INTENDED

I’d just started sun salutations when I spotted it under the wax myrtle. A slumped rubbery thing, flat tire. Except it was three slumped rubbery things painted like a giraffe, all stacked up, glistening—a giant snake is what it was. Ever…

WHAT LUCY DID

  WHERE LUCY WENT Pinckney Wildlife Refuge. The thick dark enveloped Lucy as though welcoming her home, and her mind quieted. Without light, she could smell: pluff mud’s salty sparks, shell road’s chalky cornstarch. At Ibis…

A Duet for Prose and Piano
Paul Finley & Patricia Smith
Photo Courtesy Paul Joseph Brown

Words by Patricia Smith
Original music by Paul Finley

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