الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
It is known that violence, racism, loss of beloved ones, catastrophic natural disasters, self-destruction, and failure in love could be all reasons for trauma; therefore, if trauma is to have a voice, it should probably be Patricia Smith (1955). Smith gives a yelling voice to thousands of black-skinned people, those who have suffered violence, and racism, and who have cried over their kids’ deaths in racial incidents. She also recites the depressing stories of those who have lost their homes and families in hurricanes and those who have been searching for their identity in a world that has no place for dreamers.
Smith is a contemporary African American poet who was born in Chicago. She is the author of seven volumes of poetry. She is also a creative writing teacher, a playwright, a spoken-word performer, and a former journalist. Smith is a four-time individual National Poetry Slam champion. Her book, Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah is the recipient of the Phillis Wheatley Book Award in Poetry, the Rebekah Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, and the Lenore Marshall Prize, presented by the Academy of American Poets in recognition of the most outstanding book of poetry published in America. Smith is also a winner of a 2008 National Book Award finalist, the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award in Poetry, the National Poetry Series Award, the Patterson Poetry Award, two Pushcart Prizes, and the Rattle Poetry Prize. She is also a winner of the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award for short story writing, and she has works selected to appear in both Best American Poetry and Best American Essays. Furthermore, she is the 2016 recipient of both the McDowell and Yadoo fellowships 2016, and
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she has been inducted into the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent.
In her first book of poetry, Life According to Motown, published in 1991, Smith expresses her experiences growing up in Chicago, during the race-torn ‘60s. Smith introduces the miserable state of African American immigrants, whom she describes as the dreamers, those who leave their hometowns, dreaming of a new life, only to traumatically face a bitter and hard reality. Moreover, Smith introduces her family’s real experience as African American immigrants in many of her poems. For example, through writing Life according to Motown, Smith reveals having felt triggered by descriptions of her grown-up stage of life, because of her inability to recognize her original roots. Smith explains that her mother never talks about or even mentions their past life in Alabama, thinking that, by ignoring their history, she is helping her daughter in her new life. Smith states in her interview with Leslie Mcilroy :
Whenever I have the time to really sit down and listen to music, I’m obsessed with the same era — ‘60s, some ‘70s — of rhythm and blues. I still listen to Motown, I listen to Aretha, Chaka Khan, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Tyrone Davis. That music, that time, is where I’m rooted, where I feel most at home. I still believe in the better world their voices crafted for me. I can hear hope in those voices, and it was the last time music spoke directly to me as if it knows what I needed. At the risk of making a sweeping statement that will enrage just about everyone, music since then has been vapid and self-centered. (Mcilroy 3)
In her second book, Big Towns, Big Talk published in 1992, Smith describes life after a childhood in Chicago. She introduces themes like family, love, and feminism. In 1993, Smith published her third book, Close to Death, which considers the life and eagerness of the black
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male and his eagerness. The book gives a loud voice to black men, who have no chances and who risk their lives at every moment in their lives. Smith endeavors to express her folk’s fear of becoming victims of violent crimes. This underlying desire permeating her work can be seen in a self-reflection on the experience of losing her father, who was murdered by a bullet fired into the back of his head. She writes in the introductory lines of the book: This book is because nearly half a million black men are behind bars in the United States. Because I have seen my son with shackles at his ankles and wrists. This book is because black men represent only 3.5 percent of a national college enrollment of almost 13 million. Because I know a 51-year-old man who cannot read. This book is because 45 percent of black males are likely to become victims of violent crime three or four times in their lifetime. Because my father was killed by a bullet fired into the back of his head. This book is because a black male infant born in 1993 has a 1 in 27 chance of losing his life in a homicide. Because a gangbanger in Chicago used a 2-year-old boy as a shield. This book is because young black men in New York City are wearing clothing emblazoned with the logo C2D--Close To Death. Because so many of them are. (Smith 4)
In 2006, Smith publishes her fourth collection, Teahouse of the Almighty, which deals with religion, feminism, love, family, and the role of poetry. Later in 2008, Smith writes her fifth collection of poetry, Blood Dazzler, which gives a detailed, minute-by-minute description of Hurricane Katrina. Smith’s poems evoke the horror experienced by the people in New Orleans, as the rest of America watched on television. The poems provide stupefying and extensive coverage of