In 'Wade in the Water', Tracy K. Smith ties America's contemporary moment to its fraught founding history and the spirit of the everlasting. The collection includes erasures of historical documents and found poems, addressing themes such as slavery, climate, and social justice. Smith's work is both a critique of societal issues and a celebration of human resilience and love.
In 'Ordinary Light', Tracy K. Smith reflects on her upbringing as a middle-class black girl, focusing on her close bond with her mother and the impact of her mother's illness and death. The memoir delves into themes of identity, race, faith, and the complexities of mother-daughter relationships. It is a poignant exploration of growing up and understanding one's place in the world.
In this ground-breaking book, Katy Milkman reveals a proven path to help readers move from where they are to where they want to be. Drawing on her original research and the work of her world-renowned scientific collaborators, Milkman shares strategic methods for identifying and overcoming common barriers to change, such as impulsivity, procrastination, and forgetfulness. The book offers innovative approaches like 'temptation bundling,' using timely reminders, and creating 'set-it-and-forget-it systems' to make change more achievable. It emphasizes the importance of tailoring solutions to specific roadblocks and using science to stack the deck in favor of successful change.
In 'Life on Mars', Tracy K. Smith crafts a poetic journey that delves into the vastness of space and the complexities of human life. The collection explores themes of isolation, connection, and the search for meaning, weaving together personal narratives and cosmic imagery. It is a thought-provoking meditation on what it means to be human in the face of the unknown.
It’s the rare podcast conversation where, as it’s happening, I’m making notes to go back and listen again so I can fully absorb what I heard. But this conversation with Tracy K. Smith was that kind of episode.
Smith is the chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, a Pulitzer-Prize winning poet, and a two-time poet laureate of the United States (2017-19). But I’ll be honest: She was an intimidating interview for me. I often find myself frustrated by poetry, yearning for it to simply tell me what it wants to say and feeling aggravated that I can’t seem to crack its code.
Preparing for this conversation and (even more so) talking to Smith was a revelation. Poetry, she argues, is about expressing “the feelings that defy language.” The struggle is part of the point: You’re going where language stumbles, where literalism fails. Developing a comfort and ease in those spaces isn’t something we’re taught to do, but it’s something we need to do. And so, on one level, this conversation is simply about poetry: what it is, what it does, how to read it.
But on another level, this conversation is also about the ideas and tensions that Smith uses poetry to capture: what it means to be a descendent of slaves, a human in love, a nation divided. Laced throughout our conversation are readings of poems from her most recent book, Wade in the Water, and discussions of some of the hardest questions in the American, and even human, canon. Hearing Smith read her erasure poem, “Declaration,” is, without a doubt, one of the most powerful moments I’ve had on the podcast.
There is more to this conversation than I can capture here, but simply put: This isn’t one to miss. And that’s particularly true if, like me, you’re intimidated by poetry.
References:
Smith’s lecture before the Library of Congress
Smith’s commencement speech at Wellesley College
Book recommendations:
Notes from the Field by Anna Deavere Smith
Quilting by Lucille Clifton
Bodega by Su Hwang
Credits:
Producer/Audio engineer - Jeff Geld
Researcher - Roge Karma
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The Gray Area with Sean Illing 
