So this post is a few weeks late, but WordSmith and I were asked to be part of the House Lions Poetry Podcast at Wesleyan University. They recently posted his session, and you can check out one of the recordings of my favorite pieces, “Reinvent the Wheel”, below.
You can find out more about the music/personal side of WordSmith on our Contact page, but here’s some background on his work in the written word:
Josh Smith is a poet and emcee from Woodstock, NY who grew up with hip-hop as the unlikely soundtrack to the vibrant rural landscape of his beloved Upstate home. At Wesleyan, his work has been published in The Hangman’s Lime and allegedly, under a pseudonym, in Stethoscope. As an emcee, he makes music under the name WordSmith, performing around the Northeast with both acoustic and electric ensembles.
Here’s “Reinvent the Wheel”:
Reinvent The Wheel
4/4. acoustic guitar atop a breakbeat. vinyl record hiss. scuffed speakers. 94 beats per minute.
I did not invent the wheel, I was the crooked spoke adjacent
van ride tape decks
landslide draped legs
across the seats/heard the lyrics top the beats
loose-lipped lines were not enough
on trips to sketch cobbled libraries
New Haven speakers nodded our heads
til we could feel the grit of Farragut Road
Black Helicopters in homage to the BK boro/
city-bred Jewish emcees keeping it thorough
I wore my scars like the rings on a pimp
I kept my verses Wood-stocked within the barrel/
and took breaths on every school day
I stayed fresh in my apparel.
In the days of kings and queens I was a jester
I learned from lines as hot as this
so I shunned every dollar missed
collaged the paint on hollow fists
and retreated into the birch branches
to develop my craft trying to find a balance
rat-tat-tat-tat-tat hi hat to grind that
stone into the dust of my notebook
I needed the Eastern horizon to be my Brooklyn
so I lay low beneath the window in the wall and looked in.
All I ever wanted was to pick apart the day
put the pieces back together my way
I built a cannon
with two Ns and a neckbone
to withstand any staredown
stood atop the heap with a rare sound
and listened to Minneapolis
drop the P from pRIDE and hop in my car
to drive far between music scene-less cities
seam-less dreams-left in the flooding Sawkill
to rock rocks into pebble by midnight.
Not until you’ve listened to Rakim
on a rocky mountain top have you heard hip-hop
I climbed Bonticou Crag and headed the trail
freestyling in the foliage
Climb trees, go out on a limb I moved my
wrists like calypso/ never let a clip go
(kick snare kick kick snare)
upstate kids winnings bids with a thick glow
(kick snare ki-kick kick snare, crash)
I ciphered on Raymond Ave. at 3 AM
and fumbled home to the fables of Aesop Rock
Learning to pro-create/ never to appropriate
and every time I wrote too late
the late nights held me down.
I spit to the rhythm of crickets my vision hazy
notebook, space that my life never gave me.
- Josh Smith
Click here for the rest of the House Lions Podcast including poems and an interview.
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