Columnist Basks in Forgiveness

AUSTIN, Texas —  Standing before friends and fellow poets, safe in a world where invention is a gift and not a betrayal, Patricia Smith had the room in tears.

“You were my breath when I did not feel like breathing,” she read. “You are the reason I’m here.”

Smith, the former Boston Globe columnist, was here last month for the annual National Poetry Slam. She was reading at the Book People bookstore, pacing and pointing, working herself up from controlled tears to uncontrolled sobs. An audience of about 75 stood and clapped and sobbed with her.

In the newspaper business, Smith is known as the columnist forced to resign for writing about people who didn’t exist.

In the slam poetry community, she is known for speaking truths in verse. She is a four-time winner of the individual competition.

“She’s my favorite slam poet,” said Susan Somers-Willett, an Austin poet. “She’s a part of the family.”

Danny Solis, a slam veteran and a member of the Albuquerque, N.M., team, said there were three reactions to Smith’s resignation. Some, jealous of Smith’s success, were happy to see her suffer. Others were simply shocked. The majority were immediately supportive.

Smith, 43, had thought about not coming to the slam but changed her mind after many wrote and called. She did not compete this year, but emceed several events and was invited to read.

After going through some older work, she announced she had new material and read a series of bitter, emotional but triumphant poems.

She remembered the “canine claws” of the media and counted the times, “at least 21,” she had been labeled “unrepentant.” She confessed to wanting to kill herself, “knowing that this is the only cleansing the world will accept.”

Again and again, she blessed the community of fellow poets. “You pronounced me human and forgave,” she read. “No one understands us, so thank God we have each other.”

One poem was an angry chant of words, uttered to reclaim her right, as a writer, simply to use them: “lullaby,” “glory,” “blame.” Any word. “Trapezoid,” she said.

“Man did not give this gift to me,” she concluded, her hoarse voice cracking, the paper in her hand falling to the floor. “Man cannot take it away.”