Description:

Danez Smith is a Black, Queer, Poz writer & performer from St. Paul, MN. Danez is the author of Don’t Call Us Dead (Graywolf Press, 2017), winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection, winner of the Midwest Booksellers Choice Award, and a finalist for the National Book Award. They also wrote [insert] boy (YesYes Books, 2014), winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. They are the recipient of fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the Montalvo Arts Center, Cave Canem, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Danez’s work has been featured widely, appearing on platforms such as Buzzfeed, The New York Times, PBS NewsHour, Best American Poetry, Poetry Magazine, and on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Danez is a member of the Dark Noise Collective and is the co-host of VS with Franny Choi, a podcast sponsored by the Poetry Foundation and Postloudness. Danez’s third collection, Homie, will be published by Graywolf in Spring 2020.

Northwestern’s Forrest Lecture celebrates the life and work of the late novelist and beloved professor Leon Forrest, professor of English and, from 1985 to 1994, chair of African American studies. Past Forrest Lecturers include Danny Glover, Jamaica Kincaid and Henry Louis Gates Jr. as well as Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison, who edited Forrest’s first novel.

The Leon Forrest Lecture Series is sponsored by the African American Studies Department, and Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.