Podcasts about Ordinary Light

Tracy K. Smith was born in Massachusetts and raised in northern California. She earned a BA from Harvard University and an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University. From 1997 to 1999 she held a Stegner fellowship at Stanford University. Smith is the author of four books of poetry: The Body's Question (2003), which won the Cave Canem prize for the best first book by an African-American poet; Duende (2007), winner of the James Laughlin Award and the Essense Literary Award; Life on Mars (2011), winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; and Wade in the Water (2018). In 2014 she was awarded the Academy of American Poets fellowship. She has also written a memoir, Ordinary Light (2015), which was a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction.In June 2017, Smith was named U.S. poet laureate. She teaches  at Harvard University, where she is a professor of English and of African and African American Studies and the Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. She also hosted American Public Media's daily radio program and podcast The Slowdown, which is sponsored by the Poetry Foundation.-bio via Poetry Foundation Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Tracy K. Smith is the author of five acclaimed poetry collections, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Life on Mars. Her memoir, Ordinary Light, was a finalist for the National Book Award. From 2017 to 2019, she served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States. In 2020, heartsick from constant assaults on Black life, Smith found herself soul-searching, and digging into the historical archive for help navigating the “din of human division and strife.” In her new book, To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul, Smith draws on several avenues of thinking – personal, documentary, and spiritual– to understand who we are as a nation and what we might hope to mean to one another. On November 10, 2023, Tracy K. Smith came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with john a. powell, Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute and a Professor of Law and Professor of African American Studies and Ethnic Studies at the University of California.

This week on From the Front Porch, it's time for another Literary Therapy session! Our literary Frasier Crane, Annie, is back to answer more of your reading questions and dilemmas. If you have a question you would like Annie to answer in a future episode, you can leave us a voicemail here. To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, visit our website (type “Episode 434” into the search bar to easily find the books mentioned in this episode): Monsters by Claire Dederer American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sanchez Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon (unavailable to purchase) Ordinary Light by Tracy K. Smith (audiobook) (paperback) Life in Five Senses by Gretchen Rubin (audiobook) (hardcover) Freaks, Gleeks, and Dawson's Creek by Thea Glassman (audiobook) (hardcover) The Celebrants by Steven Rowley (audiobook) (hardcover) The Bodyguard by Katherine Center (audiobook) (paperback) Bad Summer People by Emma Rosenblum (audiobook) (hardcover) Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter (audiobook) (paperback) Murder Your Employer by Rupert Holmes (audiobook) (hardcover) I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai (audiobook) (hardcover) All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr  Dear Regina by Flannery O'Connor The Lottery by Shirley Jackson Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee 11/22/63 by Stephen King Memorial Drive by Natasha Tretheway Life and Other Love Songs by Anissa Gray Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Houston From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald Bloomability by Sharon Creech (unavailable to purchase) The Watsons Go To Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin East of Eden by John Steinbeck Jaws by Peter Benchley From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in South Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf's daily happenings on Instagram at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today's episode can be purchased online through our store website, www.bookshelfthomasville.com.  A full transcript of today's episode can be found here. Special thanks to Dylan and his team at Studio D Podcast Production for sound and editing and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.  This week, Annie is reading Directions to Myself by Heidi Julavits. If you liked what you heard in today's episode, tell us by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also support us on Patreon, where you can access bonus content, monthly live Porch Visits with Annie, our monthly live Patreon Book Club with Bookshelf staffers, Conquer a Classic episodes with Hunter, and more. Just go to patreon.com/fromthefrontporch. We're so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week. Our Executive Producers are...Ashley Ferrell, Cammy Tidwell, Chanta Combs, Chantalle C, Kate O'Connell, Kristin May, Laurie Johnson, Linda Lee Drozt, Martha, Nicole Marsee, Stacy Laue, Stephanie Dean, Susan Hulings, and Wendi Jenkins. Thank you to this week's sponsor, Visit Thomasville. Summer is a wonderful time to see Thomasville, Georgia!  If it's time to hit the road for a quick getaway, we're exactly what you're looking for! You can rekindle your spark, explore historical sites, indulge in dining out, shop at amazing independent stores, and finally relax and unwind. There's no better getaway than Thomasville!  Whether you live close by or are passing through, we hope you'll visit beautiful Thomasville, Georgia – it's worth the trip! Plan your visit at ThomasvilleGa.com.

Tracy K. Smith won a Pulitzer Prize for her 2011 book of poetry, Life on Mars, which took its title from the David Bowie song of the same name. In its exploration of cosmic mysteries, the work was in part an elegy for her father, an electrical engineer who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope. She followed it up with her 2015 memoir, Ordinary Light, which was named one of the best books of the year. A former U.S. Poet Laureate, Tracy K. Smith is now professor of English and African and African American Studies at Harvard University. *This episode originally aired on May 29, 2016.

In conversation with Trapeta B. Mayson Chronicling African American family life and women through 14 celebrated poetry collections, Lucille Clifton won the National Book Award and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and is the only author ever to have two books of poetry nominated in the same year for the Pulitzer Prize. She also authored scores of children's books, served as the Poet Laureate of Maryland, and earned fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Academy of American Poets. Originally published 34 years before her 2010 death, Generations is a memoir that traces Clifton's family's history from Buffalo, New York back to the Jim Crow South and the slave trade, all the way to the women of the Dahomey people of West Africa. Generations is prefaced by an all-new forward from Tracey K. Smith. A former two-term United States Poet Laureate, she is currently the chair of Princeton University's Lewis Center for the Arts and a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She is the author of four books of verse, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Life on Mars, as well as the memoir Ordinary Light. In conversation with Trapeta B. Mayson, Philadelphia Poet Laureate and the author of She Was Once Herself and Mocha Melodies. (recorded 11/16/2021)

The pandemic memoirs began almost immediately, and now comes another kind of offering — a searching look at the meaning of the racial catharsis to which the pandemic in some sense gave birth and voice and life. Tracy K. Smith co-edited the stunning book, There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis, a collection of 40 pieces that span an array of BIPOC voices from Edwidge Danticat to Reginald Dwayne Betts, from Layli Long Soldier to Ross Gay to Julia Alvarez. Tracy and Michael Kleber-Diggs, who also contributed an essay, join Krista for a conversation that is quiet and fierce and wise. They reflect inward and outward, backwards and forwards, from inside the Black experience of this pivotal time to be alive.Tracy K. Smith — is a professor of creative writing at Princeton University and the former Poet Laureate of the United States. Her poetry collections include Life on Mars, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Duende, and Wade in the Water. Her memoir is Ordinary Light. She’s the co-editor of the book, There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis.Michael Kleber-Diggs — teaches creative writing through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop and at colleges and high schools in Minnesota. He’s a contributor to the book, There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis. His debut collection, Worldly Things, has been awarded the 2021 Max Ritvo Poetry Prize.This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Tracy K. Smith and Michael Kleber-Diggs — ‘History is upon us... its hand against our back.’Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

The pandemic memoirs began almost immediately, and now comes another kind of offering — a searching look at the meaning of the racial catharsis to which the pandemic in some sense gave birth and voice and life. Tracy K. Smith co-edited the stunning book, There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis, a collection of 40 pieces that span an array of BIPOC voices from Edwidge Danticat to Reginald Dwayne Betts, from Layli Long Soldier to Ross Gay to Julia Alvarez. Tracy and Michael Kleber-Diggs, who also contributed an essay, join Krista for a conversation that is quiet and fierce and wise. They reflect inward and outward, backwards and forwards, from inside the Black experience of this pivotal time to be alive.Tracy K. Smith — is a professor of creative writing at Princeton University and the former Poet Laureate of the United States. Her poetry collections include Life on Mars, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Duende, and Wade in the Water. Her memoir is Ordinary Light. She’s the co-editor of the book, There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis.Michael Kleber-Diggs — teaches creative writing through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop and at colleges and high schools in Minnesota. He’s a contributor to the book, There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis. His debut collection, Worldly Things, has been awarded the 2021 Max Ritvo Poetry Prize.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

In episode 188 of the Quarantine Tapes, Paul Holdengräber is joined by author Tracy K. Smith. In this conversation, Paul and Tracy discuss the intensity of this moment in history, and explore the precision and power of poetry. Tracy describes the necessity for working together to develop a new vocabulary, and shares her thoughts about the essential role poetry plays in saving the soul of America.Tracy reads her poem We Feel Now a Largeness Coming On, and the pair unpack ideas about reanimating imagination and conquering fear. In advance of publishing, Tracy then shares part of a poem called benediction by Joshua Bennett, chosen from There’s a Revolution Outside, edited by Tracy Smith and John Freeman. Paul and Tracy elaborate about the multiplicity of possibility that imagination provides, and how poetic vocabulary helps us all to reclaim joy in these calamitous times. Tracy K. Smith is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of four books of poetry, most recently Wade in the Water, winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. She is also the editor of the anthology American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time, and cotranslator (with Changtai Bi) of My Name Will Grow Wide Like a Tree: Selected Poems by Yi Lei. Smith’s memoir, Ordinary Light, was named a finalist for the National Book Award. From 2017 to 2019, she served as the twenty-second Poet Laureate of the United States. She is currently a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Tracy K. Smith (born April 16, 1972) is an American poet and educator. She served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2017 to 2019.[1] She has published four collections of poetry, winning the Pulitzer Prize for her 2011 volume Life on Mars[2][3] Her memoir, Ordinary Light, was published in 2015. - Bio via Wikipedia See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A sage steers by the bright light of confusion and doubt.In this way, rather than relying on your own distinctions,you dwell in the ordinary.This is called illumination.Understanding that abides in the unknowable is realization.And never understanding where it all comes from –that is called inward radiance. -ZhuangziSupport the show (https://www.paypal.me/apalmr)

Here’s a conversation with Tracy K. Smith about poetry, history, memory, and wonder. Smith collects awards and prizes the way the rest of us collect traffic tickets (only hers are well-deserved!) She served as poet laureate of the United States from 2017 to 2019. She is the author of four prize-winning poetry collections, including Wade in the Water and Life on Mars, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Her 2016 memoir Ordinary Light was a finalist for the National Book Award. In 2018, she curated an anthology called American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time—bringing together contemporary writers to create a poetic exploration of  21st century America. She’s also written the librettos for two operas and serves as the chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton where she teaches creative writing.  Her writing sings from the page.  It is lyrical, accessible and crucial—combining honesty and imagination as she explores issues of race, family, and the infinite.  In this podcast, she reads and discusses some of her poems and delves into her belief that the language of poetry with its multiplicity of voices can create possibilities with wide and deep implications.  Tracy K. Smith is a voice for our time—both on the page and in this interview.  

Here’s a conversation with Tracy K. Smith about poetry, history, memory, and wonder. Smith collects awards and prizes the way the rest of us collect traffic tickets (only hers are well-deserved!) She served as poet laureate of the United States from 2017 to 2019. She is the author of four prize-winning poetry collections, including Wade in the Water and Life on Mars, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Her 2016 memoir Ordinary Light was a finalist for the National Book Award. In 2018, she curated an anthology called American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time—bringing together contemporary writers to create a poetic exploration of  21st century America. She’s also written the librettos for two operas and serves as the chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton where she teaches creative writing.  Her writing sings from the page.  It is lyrical, accessible and crucial—combining honesty and imagination as she explores issues of race, family, and the infinite.  In this podcast, she reads and discusses some of her poems and delves into her belief that the language of poetry with its multiplicity of voices can create possibilities with wide and deep implications.  Tracy K. Smith is a voice for our time—both on the page and in this interview.  

Here's a conversation with Tracy K. Smith about poetry, history, memory, and wonder. Smith collects awards and prizes the way the rest of us collect traffic tickets (only hers are well-deserved!) She served as poet laureate of the United States from 2017 to 2019. She is the author of four prize-winning poetry collections, including Wade in the Water and Life on Mars, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Her 2016 memoir Ordinary Light was a finalist for the National Book Award. In 2018, she curated an anthology called American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time—bringing together contemporary writers to create a poetic exploration of  21st century America. She's also written the librettos for two operas and serves as the chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton where she teaches creative writing.  Her writing sings from the page.  It is lyrical, accessible and crucial—combining honesty and imagination as she explores issues of race, family, and the infinite.  In this podcast, she reads and discusses some of her poems and delves into her belief that the language of poetry with its multiplicity of voices can create possibilities with wide and deep implications.  Tracy K. Smith is a voice for our time—both on the page and in this interview.  

Links for O.U.R.#OURrescue https://lnkd.in/ggxCqGE 

Tracy K. Smith’s poem “Song” is filled with observations of a loved person: their habits, the things they do when they think nobody is watching. Love is shown and celebrated in observing the small practices of another.  A question to reflect on after you listen: What’s something small and quiet you’ve noticed about a loved one?About the poet:Tracy K. Smith is a professor of creative writing at Princeton University and the former poet laureate of the United States. Her poetry collections include Life on Mars, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Duende, and The Body’s Prize. Her memoir is Ordinary Light, and she also hosts the podcast, The Slowdown.“Song” comes from Tracy K. Smith’s book Life on Mars. Thank you to Graywolf Press, who published the book and to The Permissions Company, who let us use Tracy’s poem. Read it on our website at onbeing.org.Find the transcript for this episode at onbeing.org.The original music in this episode was composed by Gautam Srikishan.

The U.S. Poet Laureate. “There’s this whole other narrative unfolding.” How history “which once felt so remote, feels closer and active and unresolved.” Listening for the spaces that are under-imagined. “Little leaps of imagination” that can restore us. Tracy K. Smith has a deep interest in “the kind of silence that yields clarity” and “the way our voices sound when we dip below the decibel level of politics.” She’s a welcome voice on the little leaps of the imagination that can restore us. She’s spent the past year traversing our country, listening for all of this and drawing it forth as the U.S. Poet Laureate. Krista spoke with her at the invitation of New York’s B’nai Jeshurun synagogue, which has been in communal exploration on creating a just and redeemed social fabric. Tracy K. Smith is the 22nd United States Poet Laureate and the director of Princeton University’s creative writing program. Her works of poetry include include “Wade in the Water,” “Life on Mars,” and “Duende.” Her memoir is “Ordinary Light.” She’s written the introduction to a new book, “American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time,” and she’s launching a new podcast called The Slowdown. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

The U.S. Poet Laureate. “There’s this whole other narrative unfolding.” How history “which once felt so remote, feels closer and active and unresolved.” Listening for the spaces that are under-imagined. “Little leaps of imagination” that can restore us. Tracy K. Smith has a deep interest in “the kind of silence that yields clarity” and “the way our voices sound when we dip below the decibel level of politics.” She’s a welcome voice on the little leaps of the imagination that can restore us. She’s spent the past year traversing our country, listening for all of this and drawing it forth as the U.S. poet laureate. Krista spoke with her at the invitation of New York’s B’nai Jeshurun synagogue, which has been in communal exploration on creating a just and redeemed social fabric. Tracy K. Smith is the 22nd United States Poet Laureate and the director of Princeton University’s creative writing program. Her works of poetry include include “Wade in the Water,” “Life on Mars,” and “Duende.” Her memoir is “Ordinary Light.” She’s written the introduction to a new book, “American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time,” and she’s launching a new podcast called The Slowdown. This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Tracy K. Smith — love is a language / Few practice, but all, or near all speak.” Find more at onbeing.org.

The United States Poet Laureate, Tracy K. Smith is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Life on Mars, a ''strange and beautiful'' book of verse that ''pulses with America's adolescent crush on the impossible, on what waits beyond the edge of the universe'' (New York Times). Her other work includes the celebrated poetry collections Duende, winner of the James Laughlin Award; The Body's Question, winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize; and the memoir Ordinary Light, a finalist for the National Book Award. A professor of creative writing at Princeton and contributor to myriad anthologies and periodicals, Smith earned a fellowship with the Academy of American Poets. Her latest collection ties the truths of America's present to its fraught founding history. Watch the video here. (recorded 4/5/2018)

Tracy K. Smith is the author of the memoir Ordinary Light and four books of poetry: Wade in the Water, (April 2018); Life on Mars, which received the 2012 Pulitzer Prize; Duende, recipient of the 2006 James Laughlin Award; and The Body's Question, which won the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Smith is also the recipient of the Academy of American Poets Fellowship, a Rona Jaffe Award and a Whiting Award. She was the Literature protégé in the 2009-2011 cycle of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. In June 2017 she was named the 22nd U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by the Library of Congress, and in March 2018 she was re-appointed to a second term for 2018-19.

Tracy K. Smith, Feb. 17, 2018, Raymond Danowski Poetry Library Reading Series, Thirteenth Season, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, Emory University Tracy K. Smith, 22nd US poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, gives a reading of her poems, as part of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library Reading Series. She is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, “Ordinary Light,” and three books of poetry. Her collection “Life on Mars” won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize and was selected as New York Times Notable Book. The collection is partly a tribute to her late father, an engineer who worked on the Hubble Telescope. “Duende” won the 2006 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets and an Essence Literary Award. “The Body’s Question” was the winner of the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Smith’s reading at Emory is part of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library Reading Series, now in its 13th season. Smith is the seventh U.S. poet laureate to be featured in the series, and the 31th reader overall.

Tracy K. Smith, Feb. 17, 2018, Raymond Danowski Poetry Library Reading Series, Thirteenth Season, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, Emory University Tracy K. Smith, 22nd US poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, gives a reading of her poems, as part of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library Reading Series. She is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, “Ordinary Light,” and three books of poetry. Her collection “Life on Mars” won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize and was selected as New York Times Notable Book. The collection is partly a tribute to her late father, an engineer who worked on the Hubble Telescope. “Duende” won the 2006 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets and an Essence Literary Award. “The Body’s Question” was the winner of the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Smith’s reading at Emory is part of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library Reading Series, now in its 13th season. Smith is the seventh U.S. poet laureate to be featured in the series, and the 31th reader overall.

US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith says her true self comes out in her work. Poetry, she says, helps her wrestle with dark, sometimes unresolvable questions. In this episode she reads new and old work that examines subjects like death, the afterlife, nature, and African American history. Smith is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Ordinary Light, and three books of poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Life on Mars. Her book Wade in the Water is due out this spring. She was appointed the 22nd US Poet Laureate in 2017. She’s the first laureate appointed by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. Find the Aspen Insight episode, "Living the Creative Life" by clicking here. Follow our show on Twitter @aspenideas and Facebook at facebook.com/aspenideas. Email your comments to aspenideastogo@gmail.com.

It has been one year since Connor and Jack launched Close Talking!. After 24 episodes, they decided to commemorate the occasion by looking back on an episode they particularly enjoyed on now-poet laureate Tracy K. Smith's, "The Weather in Space." To learn more about Tracy K Smith, go here: www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-po…racy-k-smith. Check out her book Life on Mars and her memoir Ordinary Light! Subscribe to Close Talking on iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/close…d1185025517?mt=2 Find us on facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking Find us on twitter at: twitter.com/closetalking You can always send us an e-mail with thoughts on this or any of our previous podcasts, as well as suggestions for future shows, at closetalkingpoetry@gmail.com.

October 26, 2017 | Pulitzer Prize winner and U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith was raised in a Baptist household, and her mother's devout faith shaped her sense of self, language, life, health, and the past. Her childhood experiences are the inspiration for much of her work, which has received national acclaim. In this Faith and Culture series conversation, author and series moderator Paul Elie will invite Smith to talk about her poetry; her searching memoir, Ordinary Light (2015); and her forthcoming book, Wade in the Water (2018). They will explore the role a religious sensibility plays in her work and discuss the challenge of communicating home truths to future generations.

Fr. Peter Armenio, an Opus Dei priest, reminds us that St. Josemaria was inspired by the light of God with the mission to bring Christ into the heart of the entire world in a way that He had never been before. Into a world that is gripped by a culture of death; to be healed by the intervention of God’s Mercy. “God is the same as always. It is men of faith that are needed: and then, there will be a renewal of the wonders we read of in the Gospel.” St. Josemaria; The Way no. 586 Faith filled children of God are called to participate in this beautiful mission. We are to replicate both the joy and the affection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This can be done if first a well formed interior life of prayer is established, for it is our prayer life that exudes this joy, the light of Christ. Fr. Peter refers to what St. Gregory Nazianzen wrote in his Oration #39 that, “[God] wants you to become a living force for all mankind, lights shinning in the world.” This is no ordinary light he speaks of; it is a light in which we are bathed in the glory of God. Let us ask Our Blessed Mother Mary to help us enter into the light, the light of her Son, which is nothing more and nothing less than the Mercy of God. ______________________________________________________________________ THANK YOU FOR LISTENING! If you enjoyed today’s podcast, please leave a rating or review here on SoundCloud and on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/st.-josemaria-institute-podcast/id966458405?mt=2 Don’t miss new podcasts from the St. Josemaria Institute!
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Tracy K. Smith was named 22nd U.S. Poet Laureate last week. In 2016 she came by the Library to discuss her memoir, Ordinary Light.

Connor and Jack discuss the Tracy K Smith poem "The Weather In Space." More about Tracy K Smith here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/tracy-k-smith. Check out her book Life on Mars and her new memoir Ordinary Light! Find us on facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking Find us on twitter at: twitter.com/closetalking You can always send us an e-mail with thoughts on this or any of our previous podcasts, as well as suggestions for future shows, at closetalkingpoetry@gmail.com.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet discusses her new memoir, a gorgeous kaleidoscope of self and family, that explores the meaning of home against a complex backdrop of race, religion, and unbreakable bonds. With lyrical precision and a tender intelligence, Smith delves into the life and death of her mother.  Smith struggles to understand her mother’s steadfast Christian faith, ultimately discovering her own prayer-like solace in poetry. Lynell George, whose own body of work includes reflections about place, family, and her mother, leads an intimate conversation with Smith about the extraordinary journey of a daughter.*Click here to see photos from the event! 

I talk with the amazing Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith about her new memoir Ordinary Light.