Poet Tracy K. Smith, in addition to being one of the most awarded poets of her generation, is a poet who explores race, family, faith, and the strange idiosyncrasies of our existence through a deeply personal lens. Her hypnotic, surprising, even absurd, work offers elegant socio political commentary in vivid verse. She has explored her challenging ideas and poignant stories in three collections of poetry and her memoir. Her work has met much critical acclaim, with Publisher’s Weekly’s starred review noting her “lyric brilliance and political impulses.” She is currently the director of Princeton University’s Creative Writing program.
She obtained her BA from Harvard University, an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University, and held the Wallace Stegner fellowship at Stanford University from 1997 to 1999. Her first collection of poetry, The Body’s Question (2003), explores the intersection of race and family, and addresses the difficulties of confronting loss. It won the Cave Canem prize for the best debut work by an African American writer. Her second, Duende (2007), explores the history of often ignored cultures, as well as sharing stories of personal survival and political change. In 2006, it won the American Academy of Poets’ James Laughlin award. Her most recent collection, Life on Mars (2011), is a powerful elegy for her father, a scientist who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope, that won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 2012. It explores both the boundaries of space and civilization, as well as the beautiful reality of the mundane. Just as Life on Mars paid homage to her father, her memoir, Ordinary Light (2015), is for her mother. Detailing her experiences from childhood, to her coming of age, till the present day, Ms. Smith dissects the same critical issues addressed in her earlier poetry through a deeply personal lense. Ordinary Light was a finalist for the National Book Award. For her compelling body of work, she received the 2014 Academy of American Poets Fellowship, as well as numerous other awards, fellowships, and grants including a Rona Jaffe Award and a Whiting Award.
As this year’s Arrillaga speaker, she will be speaking at an all school assembly on October 6, after which there will be a reception for faculty and parents. On October 7, students are invited to attend a roundtable discussion with her. Ms. Smith will also be visiting English classes over these two days. Look forward to hearing from this evocative poet and author, and come to the Library to read her mesmerizing work!
–Arushi G. ’18
