Disruptive Behavior is the Second book of Poems handwritten and created by Jamaar Smiley.
This collection moves like a conversation between past, present, and possibility-where freedom is not an abstract idea, but a lived, fought-for, and inherited experience carried in the body, memory, and voice.
Each poem functions as an interruption of erasure, of convenience, of narratives designed to keep people small. The work traces the quiet before resistance, the inherited weight of Black History, and the urgency of speaking when silence becomes complicity. Calm appears not as surrender, but as preparation. Dreams are revisited not to romanticize them, but to examine what has been honored, delayed, or denied. Ancestral voices emerge not as distant echoes, but as active guides, pressing responsibility into the present moment.
Throughout the collection, Disruption is framed as care-care for truth, for community, for futures not yet realized. These poems ask readers to confront what they have accepted, what they have inherited, and what they are willing to carry forward. Freedom appears as a process rather than a destination, demanding participation, awareness, and courage at every step.
Together, these poems carry themes of Freedom, Disruption, Legacy, and Responsibility. Disruptive Behavior is not just a book of poems-it is a mirror that reflects uncomfortable truths, a call to act with intention, and a reminder that Liberation is both personal and collective. In a world that often rewards silence, this work insists that disruption, when rooted in truth and care, becomes an act of love.
