"Poetry that answers the questions: How are racism and cancer the same? How can a Black man survive in a world that attacks from inside and outside, both? "--Provided by publisher.
Roger Wyze Smith is a Brooklyn-born poet of Bajan heritage, raised in Queens, NY. A working-class, married father of three, Smith is the author of two self-published collections of poetry, Laundromats & Lounges (2013) and Chambers of a Beating Heart (2015). His third release French Kissed Black Roses (2015) won third place in the Local Gems NaPoWriMo chapbook contest. Smith was a 2012 Inspired Works Contest Winner, the 2017 Louis Armstrong House Archives Writer-in-Residence, and served as co-editor of poetry on Armstrong Literary Online Magazine 2018-2019. Smith holds a BA cum laude in English from Molloy College, an MFA in creative writing and literary translation from CUNY/Queens College, and is a member of Lambda Iota Tau Literary Honor Society.