Tracy K. Smith at Samueli Theater

“Smith brings great intelligence and sensitivity to her poems, leading readers deeper into other people’s stories–and ultimately into their own humanity.” — The Washington Post

Since first being published in 2003, Tracy K. Smith has been a writer to watch.  Smith’s collection of poetry, Life on Mars, won the Pulitzer Prize, and her memoir, Ordinary Light, was a finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction.

Regardless of what style she chooses to pursue, her language is forceful, intelligent, and musical.   Throughout her career, she has used her craft to frankly ask the questions that have intrigued her the most about our world.

Her poems, which delight in humanity’s sprawling yet thrilling range of emotions—love and grief, desire and rage, joy, and hope—often find the political within the personal, beckoning readers to engage with their own curiosities about the narratives they’ve been told about racism, power, and justice.

Like the best poets, Smith shows her readers that they share a common foundation and questions how that foundation was laid.   Dwelling in the threshold between history and the present, Smith has been called our “country’s poetic caretaker,” calling for both collective reckoning and collective empathy.

A passionate educator and advocate, Smith served two terms as Poet Laureate of the United States, during which time she traveled across America, hosting poetry readings and conversations in rural communities. She currently is a professor of English and of African and African American studies at Harvard.

Always captivating and insightful, we cannot wait to welcome and have a look inside the brilliant mind of Tracy K. Smith!