Her first months at Winthrop House were thesame way. She went to the house Thursdayfests, shehung out with juniors and seniors, she spent allher time in the dining hall. Only gradually didshe start to wonder what everyone was doing withtheir time.

"I felt very watched, because that was what Iwas doing," she says. "It was the same thing everyday." At the end of that year, she was "hit overthe head with poetry," and started thinking aboutmore serious things, about mortality. In themeantime, she and her roommates decided they'dlive in DeWolfe. "I wanted to write," she says,"and I knew it was such a masturbatory thing todo--'Let me think about myself.' Rather than beseen as a recluse, I decided just to do thosethings privately."

Mabye for these reasons, she's never been a bigplayer in Harvard's literary community. She'schosen to work alone, or with artists in the DarkRoom Collective, a group of young, Black poets inBoston. She never comped the Advocate--she guesseseither it was too intimidating, or she was toolazy.

"I'm willing to be a person that writes byherself. I love workshops and feedback, but ittakes a lot of energy. You have to withdraw andthink about what you want to think about."

By the beginning of sophomore year, asthe Thursdayfests raged and she was coming toterms with Fairfield, her introspection about raceand identity only intensified. Smith decided toconcentrate in both English and Afro-Americanstudies; a seminar with Werner Sollors brought heracross a" threshold into--I don't want to sayblackness, but maybe commercial blackness,social blackness, confirmed in literature. I did alot of reading I hadn't done but should have doneby then."

She rigorously--and exclusively--versed herselfin Black history and culture. Every book shebought that year was written by a Black. The musicshe listened to was largely by Blackartists--Stevie Wonder, Joan Armatrading--and shewas "immersing myself in what I thought my selfshould be." She made efforts to make Blackfriends, and she says she was "hypersensitiveabout race, wanting to argue about it withfriends, pouncing on people for saying somethingthe wrong way."

She took Spike Lee's seminar, i