Tracy K. Smith

Tracy K. Smith received the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her third book of poems, "Life on Mars." The collection draws upon the genre of science fiction in considering who we humans are and what the vast universe holds for us. In poems of political urgency, tenderness, elegy, and wit, Smith conjures version upon version of the future, imagines the afterlife, and contemplates life here on Earth in our institutions, cities, houses, and hearts. "Life on Mars" was a New York Times Notable Book, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and a New Yorker, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year.

Smith’s debut collection, "The Body’s Question," was selected by Kevin Young as winner of the Cave Canem Prize for the best first book by an African American poet. Straddling languages, speakers, and geographies, the poems bear witness to love, loss, and belonging while laying claim to a large and nimble sense of identity. In his introduction, Young writes, “Smith... seems perfectly at home speaking of grief and loss, of lust and hunger, of joy and desire—which here often means the desire for desire, and a desire for language itself.”

"Duende," Smith’s second book, received the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. The collection takes its title from a term Federico Garcia Lorca brought into broad parlance. The duende is the wild, unpredictable, and oftentimes dangerous energy an artist might seek to conjure up and contend with. Unlike the muse, which exists beyond or above the artist, the duende sleeps deep within—as pure urge, fury, chaos, and passion—waiting to be awakened and wrestled, often at great cost. In Smith’s hands, this sense of artistic struggle and daring meets up with forms of social and political struggle, resistance, and survival. It also illuminates the private upheaval of divorce and its aftermath.

In her memoir, "Ordinary Light," Smith explores her own experience of race, religion, and the death of her mother shortly after Smith graduated from Harvard. The book was a finalist for the National Book Award and named a Notable Book by both the New York Times and Washington Post.

Smith’s fourth book of poems, "Wade in the Water," won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for its examination of the grave contradictions tied up in America’s history. In documentary “found” and “erasure” poems, Smith unravels the knot of racism and denial as the central conundrum of America, and she forges a vocabulary of compassion as a possible route forward through our current strife. In 2019, a selection of her poetry titled "Eternity: Selected Poems" was published in the UK. In 2020, Smith and Changtai Bi co-translated Chinese poet Yi Lei’s book of poetry "My Name Will Grow Wide Like a Tree." In 2021, she released a book of poems titled "Such Color: New and Selected Poems." She also edited, with John Freeman, the prose anthology "There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis," and was guest editor for "The Best American Poetry 2021." Her newest book, "To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul" (Knopf, Nov. 7, 2023), grapples with being Black, being an American, and what it means to be "free."

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 edited the anthology "American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time" during her laureateship, and launched the American Public Media podcast "The Slowdown." In March 2021, she was voted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Smith wrote the libretti for three operas: Castor and Patience, in collaboration with composer Gregory Spears, is rooted in a conflict over historically Black-owned land. The work premiered with the Cincinnati Opera in July 2022. Another, A Marvelous Order, with composer Judd Greenstein and video artist Joshua Frankel, is about two competing visions of progress in New York City. Her newest libretto is for The Righteous with composer Gregory Spears, which will make its world premiere on July 13, 2024, at the Santa Fe Opera. She also wrote a Civil War oratorio with Aaron Siegel titled I Will Tell You the Truth About This, I Will Tell You All About It, which premiered in November 2023.

Smith is a Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute and a professor of English and of African and African American studies in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.