But there was a second meaning: a warning to runaway slaves to walk in streams or creeks in order to hide their scent from pursuing bloodhounds. Smith’s latest book, Wade in the Water, takes its title from a spiritual that seems to celebrate the Israelites’ escape from slavery in Egypt – a subject that American slaves would appreciate. Her books of poetry have received many awards, including a Pulitzer Prize for Life on Mars. She currently teaches at Princeton University. It was always autumn.” From this shining world she went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from Harvard and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University.

Smith’s poem “Urban Youth” suggests that her childhood was a happy one: “In the ’70s, everything shown bright as brass.

Her father was an engineer who worked on the Hubble telescope her mother was a teacher. Smith was born in 1972 in Falmouth, Mass., and raised in Fairfield, Calif. Pension Bureau Files, the collections of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and an article in the New York Times Magazine titled “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare.”Īfrican-American writer Tracy K. Smith, the current Poet Laureate of the United States, finds her inspiration not only in nature but also in such unlikely places as the U.S. Perhaps Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” or “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” comes to mind. Many people think of a “poet” as a writer who searches for inspiration by wandering through the woods or walking beside the sea, notebook in hand.

Wade in the water tracy k smith