How We REMEMBER

SOMETHING magical happens when a poet turns their attention to prose. Sentences take on the lyric quality of the line, and paragraphs assume the compact perfection of stanzas. Multiple truths are given equal weight, and every single word is intentional.

Such is the case with Clint Smith’s second book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, an ambitious volume published in June by Little, Brown about the ways America remembers its history of slavery. Each chapter is devoted to a location or landmark, and while some cover familiar sites like Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, others feature lesser-known places, like Blandford Church and Cemetery, which houses one of the largest mass interments of Confederate soldiers in the U.S. South. Stories about Smith’s travels and his conversations with employees and visitors slip seamlessly into history and historiography—all of which are knit together with the beauty of his magnetic prose.

“You’ll probably hear my children in the background,” says Smith, who lives in Maryland with his wife and two kids, as we sit down for a Zoom interview near the end of March. My first question is about his new book’s inception, and I quickly learn that it began in another genre. Smith discovered his love of writing in 2008 during a visit to the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, a haven for Black and Brown poets located on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Back then he was a self-described “disillusioned English major struggling to connect with the canon,” but after one night at the Nuyorican, Smith was hooked. He would go on to an illustrious career as a poet, winning the Jerome J.