To Free the Captives, Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith, Discussion & Book Signing

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A limited number of tickets include a copy of Smith’s new book To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul.

"Her poems are mysterious but utterly lucid and write a history that is sub-rosa yet fully within her vision. They are deeply satisfying and necessarily inconclusive. And they are pristinely beautiful without ever being precious." – Elizabeth Alexander

Tracy K. Smith is a librettist, translator and 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.