She knew her father died too young. He wasn't even 60 when he was shot.
But it was not until her own son became a teenager that Patricia Smith really learned to fear the statistics: A black male born in this decade has a one in 27 chance of losing his life in a homicide.Before she had Damon, Smith wrote most of her poems about love and rock 'n' roll.
She did know racism. She had felt vulnerable, like "wearing your bones on the outside." But she always thought life would be safer for her children.
"I taught my son to look life in the eye, to make the world consider him on his terms," she says. "He never lowered his head for anyone. I taught him pride, the same way I taught him to read, to sing, to think, to walk.
"Then Rodney King's bones were smashed beneath the repeated blows of nightsticks . . ."
Today, Smith looks at her 17-year-old son and sees him walking with the determined swagger of a young black man. She sees a teenager who slips on bravado as easily as he slips on his dark-hooded sweatshirt. His attitude is a mask, she knows, just as all mothers know the truth about their sons. Yet, now, out of necessity, she is going to try to steal his mask.
She wants to curb his bravado. What else can she do to protect him? She says, "I must teach him fear."
Smith is a reporter for the Boston Globe, as well as being the winner of three national poetry slams. She came to Salt Lake City in April to do a poetry workshop for the Utah chapter of the National Organization of Women. Later, at A Woman's Place bookstore, she read from her poems.
Since her son became a man, she has sought out other black men. First, she interviews them for the newspaper. Then, trying to capture their lives in an even more intimate way, she goes home and writes poetry about them.
In Salt Lake City last month, she read a poem about an undertaker, a man grown weary of burying 17-year-old sons. It begins like this:
When a bullet enters the brain, the head explodes.
I can think of no softer warning for the mothers
who sit doubled before my desk,
knotting their smooth brown hands,
and begging, fix my boy, fix my boy,
here's his high school picture.
And the smirking, mildly mustachioed player
in the crinkled snapshot
looks nothing like the plastic bag of boy
stored and dated in the cold room downstairs.
Smith went into the world of black men, so she could understand where her son would be going. Even though her father's death had taught her it was dangerous, she wanted to see for herself: What is the absolute worst that could befall my son? Everybody has a way of learning to let go. This was hers.
Smith not only met an undertaker and some gang members - she also met a barber and a corporate executive. She titled the poem about the executive "Nothing Pulling Him Down." Finally, by interviewing dozens of men and writing stories and poems, Smith found peace of mind. She dedicated her latest book of poetry "to my son Damon, who is going to make it now."
*****
Additional Information
Children do not grow up
as much as they grow away.
My son's eyes are stones - flat, brown, fireless,
with no visible openings in or out.
His voice, when he cares to try it on,
hovers one-note in that killing place
where even the blues fidget. . ..
My fingers used to brush bits of the world
from his kinked hair,
but he has moved beyond that mother shine. . .
Ancient, annoying apparatus,
I have retained the ability to warm meat,
to open cans, to clean clothing
that has yellowed and stiffened.
I spit money when squeezed,
don't try to dance in front of his friends,
and know that rap music cannot be stopped.
For these brief flashes of cool,
I am tolerated in spurts. . .
From "Biting Back" by Patricia Smith