I feel like the older I get, the truer it feels that I'm only going have an investment in a poem if… — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
Prose is something that is persistent in staying in one place long enough to not only zero in on the dramatic effect… — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
So much of my poetry begins with something that I can describe in visual terms, so thinking about distance, thinking about how… — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
Joy is a part of my process. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that poetry, as a practice, necessitates… — Tracy K. Smith Copy Share Image
Lately, I've been thinking about the difference between poetry and prose, and as I've experienced it, poetry is insistent. It allows for… — 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
