Posted on by kimhaynesjohnson

Celebrating Living Poets: Clint Smith

This is the tenth day of the 2026 Slice of Life Challenge, and we are 1/3 of the way through the month of March’s daily blogging challenge. I’m celebrating some of my favorite living poets this month by sharing a Cento poem I’ve created from one of their poetry collections. I was introduced to Clint Smith through a Book Love Summer Reading Club I participated in through Penny Kittle’s group several years ago when we all read Counting Descent. I hung on every.single.line and marveled in the raw truths of exposed feelings. With poetry this rich and moving, the way it made my soul quiver with such ability to see things more clearly, I could not understand why everyone wasn’t rushing to devour more poetry and make it a main course of their reading diets. I understood why all the holiest books of this world are all in verse. I love the way Clint Smith uses lower case letters in titles and lines, and how he takes a perspective of what was said by many voices to a black boy. He writes prose poetry beautifully, too. Here is a poet who will take a reader of other genres and make them a reader who craves more poetry.

You can read about Clint Smith here. He won the 2014 National Slam Championship, and if I were picking a poet to have lunch with, I’d want my table with Clint Smith.

Invisible

You are invisible until

long after the song has stopped

until there’s nothing left inside

those stained glass shadows

maybe the poem is a cry for help

Taken from: Ode to the only black kid in the class; When Maze and Franie Beverly Come on in my House; what the fire hydrant said to the black boy; what the cathedral said to the black boy; Queries of Unrest.

The first ten poets, in order from bottom to top
A sneak peek of the poets I’m reading the next ten days

26 Replies to “Celebrating Living Poets: Clint Smith”

  2. If you are free on March 17th, take a road trip and come hear Clint Smith speak to the students at my school at 9:45am and then in the afternoon, at my friend’s elementary school, when he speaks to their 5th grade class. If not free, know I’ll be writing about him on the 18th. He truly has such a gift for writing! I love your poem and I’m printing it out to show him!!

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    1. Sally, if I were retired, I would hop on the flight from Macon to Baltimore and be right there with you! But for now, I will look forward to seeing your post on the 18th. Thank you for sharing the poem with him! Oh, how I wish I could be there!

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  6. Kim,

    I too love Clint Smith’s poetry and prose. His second collection is also amazing, and How the Word Is passed is a must read and i d of the most important books I’ve read. I can’t say enough about what an important voice he is, and kids love his poetry, too. Many are excellent mentor texts.

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  9. So great to read your post on Clint Smith. He is really wonderful. I read How the Word is Passed and think it’s an amazing book. I grabbed my copy of Counting Descent while reading this. I’ve used “Something You Should Know” with classes. I just found “For the Hardest Days” and I think that might be a good choice for my next writing group. Thanks for the inspiration, Kim.

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  10. This was such a great experience. I loved your poem. Then it made me go back to Clint Smith’s poems. Then I loved your poem even more. I think What the Fire Hydrant Said is such a killer poem. It just hits with so much force.

    Last night I sat down to try this poem creation technique. I used a children’s author because I thought I might be sharing this process with a class. It’s very fun, but the crafting is still very challenging to me. It’s going to take practice. I like the process a lot, though. So, thank you for both teaching and modeling. And thanks for bringing me to Maggie and back to Clint.

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    1. Thank you so much for your positive feedback and words of kindness. This means so much to me. I agree about Clint Smith’s poems, and I have reread What the Fire Hydrant Said – – I couldn’t agree more that it hits with force! I know what it means to find poetry challenging. I can’t write a reverso to save my life, yet others do it with seamless ease while I stand in awe of their writing. I was thinking about your poetry unit coming up, and I am wondering whether your fourth graders might like Jenga Block poetry. For several years, we had a literacy grant in our state, and I was blessed to be able to curate pop-up community kiosks where people could write poetry and upload their poems to a Padlet. One type was Jenga poetry, and I created a video for it. If you’d like me to share it, let me know and I’ll post the link. This is our first year without the grant in five years, and I am missing all the opportunities it gave us.

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      2. Here is the link https://youtu.be/il8EkPd9Bvg?si=4ls-OME-7An7g95G and there are more at my Common Threads YouTube site. I have hidden many of the older ones, but I made the blocks after watching Paul Hankins’ Blockhead Poetry videos on Facebook. I took Jenga blocks and cut words and phrases from magazines, glued them on the blocks, and then went back and made them double-sided. Everyone from Pre-K students who use a block or two to adults who sometimes use just the words on the block or use the words as starters for lines seem to love this form that makes poetry accessible for all. I so miss the community poetry celebration this year.

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