PHOTO BY DENISE APPLEWHITE
Tracy K. Smith has been named the Library of Congress’s 22nd Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, for 2017-18. Smith is the Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor in the Humanities and a professor of creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts.
Smith is the author of three books of poetry: Life on Mars (2011); Duende (2007), winner of the 2006 James Laughlin Award and the 2008 Essence Literary Award; and The Body’s Question (2003), winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Smith is also the author of a memoir, Ordinary Light (2015), a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in nonfiction and selected as a notable book by The New York Times and The Washington Post.
The Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center is the home of the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, a position that has existed since 1936. During their terms, poet laureates seek to raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry.