Patricia Smith is the author of seven books of poetry, including Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah, winner of the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets and finalist for the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America; Blood Dazzler, a finalist for the National Book Award; and Gotta Go Gotta Flow, a collaboration with award-winning Chicago photographer Michael Abramson. Smith’s next book, Incendiary Art, will be published by Northwestern University Press in February 2017. She is a professor at the College of Staten Island and in the MFA program at Sierra Nevada College.