Suzi Q. Smith is an award-winning artist, educator, and organizer who lives in Denver, Colorado.

Poems for the End of the World. Finishing Line Press, 2021.
A Gospel of Bones. Alternating Current Press, 2021.
Books currently available for order.

Poems for the End of the World is available for order here.
A Gospel of Bones is available for order here.

Suzi Q. Smith is an award-winning artist, organizer, and educator who lives in Denver, Colorado. She has created, curated, coached, and taught in Denver for over 20 years, managing the largest poetry festivals that Denver has seen to date. A TEDx speaker multiple times, Suzi has performed throughout the United States for over a decade, and has shared stages with Nikki Giovanni, the late Gil Scott Heron, and many more. The author of poetry collections Poems for the End of the World, A Gospel of Bones, and Thirteen Descansos, Suzi is also a singer-songwriter, playwright, and multi-disciplinary creative. Currently, she is Affiliate Faculty with Regis University’s Mile High MFA, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, and DU’s Prison Arts Initiative, as well as the [margins.] Conference Director for The Word. She also serves as a community representative on the Denver County Cultural Council.

Her poems have appeared in Union Station Magazine, Suspect Press, La Palabra, Muzzle Magazine, Malpais Review, The Pedestal, The Los Angeles Journal, Denver Syntax, Word is Bond, The Peralta Press, Yellow Chair Review, and in the anthologies The Mutiny Info Reader, Diverse-City, His Rib: Anthology of Women, and In Our Own Words. 

Her debut full-length collection, A Gospel of Bones, shortlisted for the Reading the West award, is available from Alternating Current Press. and her second collection, Poems for the End of the World, is available from Finishing Line Press. Her chapbook collection of poems, Thirteen Descansos, was published by Penmanship Books in 2015. She is also co-Editor of two Colorado Book Award Finalist anthologies, Tell It Slant: An Anthology of Creative Nonfiction by Writers from Colorado’s Prisons and All the Lives We Ever Lived, Volume I.

Suzi co-wrote the dramatic productions How I Got Over: Journeys in Verse, produced by Off Center at the Denver Center for Performing Arts in 2016, and Where We Are From: Freedom is a Constant Struggle, produced by 5280 Arts Coop in 2018.

As a community organizer, Suzi began her career working for a civil rights organization in Denver. She has remained actively involved in serving her community in a number of capacities for over 20 years. Suzi was the first Slammaster of Denver’s Slam Nuba, and she spent 12 years in the poetry slam arena as a coach, organizer, and performer, earning her way to dozens of local, regional, national, and international finals and championships. In addition, she has worked extensively with youth, serving as a Teaching Artist with Youth On Record, and as a coach of Denver Minor Disturbance Youth Poetry Slam, resulting in two international championships. She has served a number of community organizations locally in Denver, including serving as the co-Chair of the Denver Commission on Cultural Affairs until 2020.

About

Suzi Q. Smith is an award-winning artist, educator, and organizer who lives in Denver, Colorado. Her collection of poems, A Gospel of Bones, is available from Alternating Current Press, and her second collection, Poems for the End of the World, is available from Finishing Line Press.

Her poems have appeared in Union Station Magazine, Suspect Press, La Palabra, Muzzle Magazine, Malpais Review, The Pedestal, The Los Angeles Journal, Denver Syntax, Word is Bond, The Peralta Press, Yellow Chair Review, and in the anthologies The Mutiny Info Reader, Diverse-City, His Rib: Anthology of Women, and In Our Own Words, and her chapbook collection of poems, Thirteen Descansos, was published by Penmanship Books. She co-wrote the dramatic productions How I Got Over: Journeys in Verse and Where We Are From: Freedom is a Constant Struggle. She is also co-Editor of two Colorado Book Award Finalist anthologies, Tell It Slant: An Anthology of Creative Nonfiction by Writers from Colorado’s Prisons and All the Lives We Ever Lived, Volume I.

Suzi Q. has also worked extensively with civil rights organizations, arts organizations, peace organizations, hospitals, prisons, and more. She was the founding Slammaster of Denver’s Slam Nuba, and she spent 12 years in the poetry slam arena as a coach, organizer, and performer. In addition, she has worked extensively with youth, serving as a Teaching Artist with Youth On Record, and as a coach of Denver Minor Disturbance Youth Poetry Slam, resulting in two international championships.

In addition to working as a teaching artist in Denver, Suzi Q. performs throughout the United States. Suzi Q. has been featured in print, on numerous television and radio programs, and her poetry has been sampled and remixed all over the world, earning both high acclaim and controversy. Her single ‘Moments’, in collaboration with Psy’Aviah, received International attention after being a finalist in the BBC’s ‘Next Big Thing’ contest.Suzi Q. was also a founding member of the Lady Wu-Tang Clan, from its launch in January 2011 until May 2013, performing as Method Man alongside her fellow Lady Wu members to sold-out audiences around the region, and sharing stages with Raekwon and Ghostface Killah of the Wu-Tang Clan.

Currently, Suzi Q. Smith performs and teaches poetry and music throughout the U.S., in addition to leading workshops on writing and performance, while she works on her next collections. She is Affiliate Faculty with Regis University’s Mile High MFA, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, and DU’s Prison Arts Initiative, as well as the [margins.] Conference Director for The Word. She also serves as a community representative on the Denver County Cultural Council.

Contact

For Booking Inquiries: