For me, a poem is an opportunity to kind of interrogate myself a little bit. — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
A poem gives me a chance to have an encounter with a feeling, with an experience, with a wish, with an idea. — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
A poem, necessarily, sits at a register that's different from our usual conversational voices. You have to listen more actively to get… — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
“[...] the body is what we lean toward, tensing as it darts, dancing away. but it's the voice that enters us. even… — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
“from time to time, i think of him watching me from over the top of his glasses, or eating candy from a… — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
We all need poetry. The moments in our lives that are characterized by language that has to do with necessity or the… — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
You want a poem to unsettle something. There's a deep and interesting kind of troubling that poems do, which is to say,… — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
I think tension between the intimate and the vast is at the heart of every poem by any poet, though of course… — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
For years following the death of my mother, I wanted to write about her. I started writing what I thought of as personal essays… — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
“So much we once coveted. So much That would have saved us, but lived, Instead, its own quick span, returning To uselessness with the… — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
“sometimes, what i see is a library in a rural community. all the tall shelves in the big open room. and the pencils in… — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
I have three kids, so children's literature is a big part of my life. — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
I feel like the older I get, the truer it feels that I'm only going have an investment in a poem if it allows… — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
One of poetry's great effects, through its emphasis upon feeling, association, music, and image - things we recognize and respond to even before we… — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
“we like to think of it as parallel to what we know only bigger. one man against the authorities. or one man against a… — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
A question is a pursuit, an invitation to envision and explore a series of possibilities, to struggle and empathize and doubt and believe. The… — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
I know my curiosity as a writer and as a person makes me really interested in moving to parts of the country that I… — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
For me, a poem is an opportunity to kind of interrogate myself a little bit. — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
![“[...] the body is what we lean toward, tensing as it darts, dancing away. but it's the voice that enters us. even saying nothing. even saying nothing over and over absently to itself” quote by Tracy K. Smith](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/753/tracy-k-smith-8847_poem_the-body-is-what-we-lean-toward-tensing_1605281.jpg)
