Co-sponsored with the Poetry Society of America
“The surfaces of a Tracy K. Smith poem are beautiful and serene, but underneath, there is always a sense of an unknown vastness. Her poems take the risk of inviting us to imagine, as the poet does, what it is to travel in another person's shoes." --Toi Derricotte
Tracy K. Smith has created verse that plumbs the universe, both interplanetary and inside ourselves. Smith is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Ordinary Light, a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in Nonfiction and selected as a Notable Book by the New York Times and Washington Post, as well as three books of poetry. Her most recent collection of poems, Life on Mars, won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize and was selected as a New York Times Notable Book. She is currently the Director of Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program.
At the reception following the reading, Emily Dickinson’s black cake is provided by The Suga Chef.