"Can you help me write a poem about my mama?" This is the question a sixth grade girl from Dade County, Florida, once asked poet Patricia Smith. The little girl, Nicole, wanted to write a poem about her drug addict mother who had died of AIDS a few months earlier. Smith told Nicole that she used poetry as her own personal way to deal with death, a way to remember the dead in a positive light, something Nicole needed because everyone around her was calling her mom a deadbeat.

Smith read the poem that this little girl and her classmates inspired to a packed crowd in the Maggie Murph Café, located in Carnegie Mellon's Hunt Library, at 5 p.m. on November 9 as part of the Perspectives Lecture Series. She was brought to campus by Carnegie Mellon's Center for the Arts in Society, co-sponsored by Carnegie Mellon's Humanities Scholars Program, Center for Africanamerican Urban Studies & the Economy (CAUSE), and Creative Writing Program.

Smith is a four-time National Poetry Slam champion, co-author of the PBS television series Africans in America's companion book, and has been featured on the HBO series Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry. Smith performed her poetry and signed copies of her fourth book of poetry, Teahouse of the Almighty, which was a winner of the 2005 National Poetry Series and was published this year by Coffee House Press. Smith's other books of poetry include Close to Death, Big Towns, Big Talk,and Life According to Motown. Smith's poems have been published in The Paris Review, TriQuarterly, AGNI, and other literary journals.

Patricia Smith was introduced as "the blues woman," a self-defined woman, a black woman of strength and pride. Her poems go to places most people dare not speak of, like masturbation and sex, to places we all have been, like the death of a loved one. Her poems ranged from poems of laughter to poems of sadness, often bringing herself and some members of the audience to the verge of tears. Smith pushes the envelope in such a way that at her Maggie Murph reading, the audience often burst out in laughter from her witty use of words and theatric performance.

Smith read many of her poems for the eagerly waiting audience. Among them, she read "Blood Sonnets," a poem about what blood means to a woman, using her granddaughter's first period as inspiration. "Deltateach" is about the power of women and how they don't need men to define who they are. "Triple X" is about how the baggy clothing she sees many young men wear symbolizes how many men put on layers to hide who they are, to conform to society so that they fit a stereotype. "Ethel Freeman" is a poem about the handicapped woman who was abandoned during the Hurricane Katrina flooding and just left to die. The poem describes what Smith believes might have gone through Ethel's mind as she waited for someone to rescue her. "My Million Fathers" is about the role of old black men and Smith's views about them, about how they function in society. Other poems included some more about the Hurricane Katrina disaster and about the black men who have influenced her.

Smith describes her poetry as a lyrical snapshot of moments that have mattered to her personally. Her poetry takes an experience or event and allows her to remember and cherish it through words.

BHA senior Andrea Hamilton asked Smith, "Why poetry? Why not use other forms of art, like music, to express your memories?" Smith answered that poetry has been "the best and most natural way for [her] to express [herself]." She went on to say that we have to "go what feels natural to your core. I always feel like life is about the stories." This is exactly what Smith's poetry is about: telling a story in such a manner that readers feel what she feels and see what she sees. This is the talent that has made Smith into a powerful and influential poet of our time.

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