Dressed for Poetic Success

Bethany Saint-Smith’s Poem on Her Childhood Church Dress Earns National Recognition

By Lori Gilbert

Sis, I took the petals of my dress and matched it

To the celebrations of blood, so tired of the work oh, we wept

remember how the linen would coil up your blood smelling like pasture pains, the pastor explained where we’ve come from

oh, church

the blessed be of a God, but don’t forget, mental health

Wait

no, you wait

we cannot savor that mental health, we merely need a God oh, if we had a God, he wouldn’t let us need mental health isn’t that right

mm-hmm

mm-hmm

oh, we in unison, songs together

am I right?

heels go click, click, click

but the petals of my dress look tired, same dress every Sunday ’magine that

a place where the dress doesn’t matter just a nook of prayer that the thoughts I tolerate fit this dress

I could use a brand-new dress.

Since she was a child, Bethany Saint-Smith has dabbled in poetry.

Her mother saved booklets of poems she wrote as a little girl, and when she struggled in an abusive relationship in her husband’s native Argentina, writing was her salvation. She self-published a book of poems called “Black Pearls,” to help fund her leaving.

When she returned home to Modesto, she started back to school and wrote another book of poems, “Going Brave,” that reflected the positive movement in her and her son’s lives.

Her latest poetic efforts earned national recognition.

“Church Dress” was selected for the poetry section of the 2022 edition of Scribendi, a nonprofit, annual magazine that selects creative works from undergraduate honors students from more than 900 colleges and universities across the country. The publication began in 1985 at the University of New Mexico.

Saint-Smith, an honors student and McNair Scholar majoring in social sciences, began writing poetry again after starting classes at Stanislaus State in fall 2021. The pieces, she clarifies, are noted as Black Conversations that recognize the communicative variations that shift from marginal spaces and denounce code switching efforts. She hopes to complete 30 by the time she graduates in December for another, yet untitled book.

“The first couple books I wrote were all about me,” Saint-Smith said. “There was nothing I was doing for the reader. These conversations I’m putting forward, I say, ‘Listen, because you haven’t been.’ It’s an opportunity to hear.”

The inspiration for the poem selected for the magazine was a conversation Saint-Smith had with her sister, who is two years younger.

“We were talking about mental health and the stigma behind it,” Saint-Smith said. “Black people often say, ‘We don’t need therapy. We go to church. Church is our therapy.’ I’m not saying that’s how everybody thinks now, but that’s definitely been one of several narratives for many generations.”

The discussion triggered her memory of church, of being a biracial child, who, with her sister, was one of three Black children in her white mother’s Methodist church.

“As a little girl, I often wore the same dress every Sunday,” Saint-Smith said. “It was lavender and baby blue and had a lavender ribbon and it was plaid. I wore it however long I could, probably a couple years, maybe three. I remember always feeling extremely special in that dress, like I was closer to God, because it was pretty. I felt people respected me more because it had the ruffles and detail work much like that of my white peers, and I felt like I belonged. This is what little girls would think of. This is what we’d dream of.”

That’s what she and her sister thought of as they tried to fit into their mother’s white world.

“The poem expresses that deep need for my sister and me wanting to understand why we couldn’t get past the things that held us back,” Saint- Smith said. “It’s not about God or having a therapist. It’s about making

sure your needs are met. Having that church dress made me think it made me a better person, or a better child with more opportunities because I looked prettier or because it matched me with those peers. It was so symbolic.

“This whole idea is that two Black girls need a new church dress, and then they wouldn’t have to worry about anything else. They could just feel good for that moment of time. This is, more significantly, about not having the same concerns as our counterparts, not having the same conversations. We have different conversations based on our very different realities. The dress was a place to poeticize that reality.”

Saint-Smith remembers it took months for her mother to buy that lavender and baby blue plaid dress, which she’d placed on layaway at K-Mart. Saint- Smith cherished that dress as a child.

As an adult, it led to her award-winning poem, which she said she dashed off in about 20 minutes.

“I think what I was really surprised by is that somebody heard what I was talking about,” she said. “I would love to know who read that and said, ‘We need to see this.’

“If you read it, it’s such a light and crisp poem. But if you read it twice, you see the message. I’m grateful.”

Saint-Smith is gaining on her goal of 30 for the book she wants to publish, continuing conversations, with others and with herself.

There are important things to say, not just for herself, but for the greater society.