[2] The daughter of Caribbean immigrants from Barbados, Dorothea Smartt was born in London, England, and grew up there.
She earned a BA degree in Social Sciences from South Bank Polytechnic and an MA in anthropology from Hunter College (CUNY).
[3] Smartt was poet in residence at Brixton Market and attached live artist at the Institute of Contemporary Arts.
She has been poetry editor for Sable LitMag[4] and guest writer at Florida International University and Oberlin College.
[4] Her poetry collections include Connecting Medium (2001) and, in 2008, Ship Shape, which is an A-Level English Literature title[9] and has been described as "a revisionist work that transforms a legacy of silencing into an exercise of counter-memory, engaging with and expanding its tradition in Caribbean arts.