Crystal Simone Smith
Award-winning poet and author of Common Sense (1776), Addressed to Today's Citizens of America: An Erasure (Beacon, 2026), whose work interrogates foundational American texts through erasure and visual poetry.
Best podcasts with Crystal Simone Smith
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Mar 25, 2026 • 54min
Crystal Simone Smith, "Common Sense (1776), Addressed to Today's Citizen's of America: An Erasure" (Beacon, 2026)
Crystal Simone Smith, award-winning poet who remakes foundational texts through erasure, discusses her book Common Sense (1776): Addressed to Today's Citizens of America. She explains why she chose Paine's pamphlet and her redaction method. Listeners hear about form, performance, accessibility, tone, and how the work reframes who counts in America as the nation nears its 250th anniversary.
Mar 25, 2026 • 54min
Crystal Simone Smith, "Common Sense (1776), Addressed to Today's Citizen's of America: An Erasure" (Beacon, 2026)
Crystal Simone Smith, award-winning poet who uses erasure and visual poetry, reworks Thomas Paine’s text into a mirror for today. She discusses why Common Sense invited redaction, her visual and performative design choices, how the erasures disrupt Paine’s exclusionary rhetoric, and the craft and revision process behind making the work speak to modern citizens.
