Clint Smith

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Clint Smith is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism, the Stowe Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2021. He is also the author of two books of poetry, the New York Times bestselling collection Above Ground as well as Counting Descent. Both poetry collections were winners of the Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and both were finalists for NAACP Image Awards. He is a staff writer at The Atlantic. Clint has received fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Art For Justice Fund, Cave Canem, and the National Science Foundation. His essays, poems, and scholarly writing have been published in The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. He is a former National Poetry Slam champion and a recipient of the Jerome J. Shestack Prize from the American Poetry Review. Previously, Clint taught high school English in Prince George’s County, Maryland where he was named the Christine D. Sarbanes Teacher of the Year by the Maryland Humanities Council. He is the host of the YouTube series Crash Course Black American History. Clint received his B.A. in English from Davidson College and his Ph.D. in Education from Harvard University. Born and raised in New Orleans, he currently lives in Maryland with his wife and their two children. Source

For the Boys Who Never Learned How to Swim

The police sirens sounded like wind

getting knocked out of our stomachs.

We tried to find a place to pull over

 

where there was a semblance of light.

There was no light.

They asked us to step out of the car.

 

I didn’t know why—they grabbed him

like he wasn't somebody's child,

palmed the back of his head

 

like a soft fruit ready to be dropped

from the top of the roof so everyone

could laugh at the plurality of pieces.

 

His face against the front of the police

car made him look like a fish out of water.

 

But where is the water?

When has there ever been water?

When have we ever been allowed to swim?

When has there ever been somewhere

we can breathe?

 

I don't remember the last time police

sirens didn't feel like gasping for air.

I don't remember what it means not

 

to be considered something meant

to flounder, to flap against

the surface while others watch you

until the flailing stops.

Published:

2016

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Contemporary

Anthology Years:

2025

Themes:

Doubt & Fear

Memory & The Past

Police Brutality

Racial Injustice

Literary Devices:

Analogy

a figure of speech that creates a comparison by showing how two seemingly different entities are alike, along with illustrating a larger point due to their commonalities

Anaphora

a figure of speech in which words repeat at the beginning of successive clauses, phrases, or sentences

Assonance

The repetition of similar vowel sounds that takes place in two or more words in proximity to each other within a line; usually refers to the repetition of internal vowel sounds in words that do not end the same.

Caesura

a break between words within a metrical foot

Extended Metaphor

a metaphor that extends through several lines or even an entire poem

Idiom

a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase

Rhetorical Question

a question asked for effect, not necessarily to be answered

Simile

a comparison between two unlike things using the words “like” or “as”