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.
Common Threads 