Everything that disappears / Disappears as if returning somewhere.

June 15, 2017 11:07 AM

Tracy K. Smith has been appointed the U.S. Poet Laureate (technically, the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress). Smith won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for Life on Mars, "A collection of bold, skillful poems, taking readers into the universe and moving them to an authentic mix of joy and pain."
posted by Etrigan (7 comments total)

I love your posts, and this post, but it is far too opportune to bring up again my disappointment with the lack of rhyming in your work lately.
posted by Samizdata at 11:16 AM on June 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

Here is a link to her speaking in Portland: http://www.opb.org/radio/programs/literary-arts-archive-project/segment/the-archive-project-tracy-k-smith/

posted by Pembquist at 12:08 PM on June 15, 2017

This is a whole lot of work to get done at ~45 years old. She is meteoric.
posted by Oyéah at 12:39 PM on June 15, 2017

Over lunch today I enjoyed reading this work of hers, via someone's Facebook: My God, It's Full of Stars.

Reading that poem made me realize how frequently—even with fiction that I love—I skim and jump lines. It seems like part of the purpose of poetry, perhaps, is to draw our attention in to each individual word. Which, for me, is shockingly rare.
posted by Zephyrial at 1:01 PM on June 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

I just read that same poem. Didn't care for it as much as others, a bit didactic. It's all over the place and loaded with minutiae.
posted by clavdivs at 1:30 PM on June 15, 2017

The minutia make it human, the match and the pipe, she shows her musings. Through this piece she reveals some of her history. This part:

Wide open, so everything floods in at once.

And sealed tight, so nothing escapes. Not even time,

Which should curl in on itself and loop around like smoke.

So that I might be sitting now beside my father

As he raises a lit match to the bowl of his pipe

For the first time in the winter of 1959.

reminds me of TS Eliot, the yellow smoke, and the warm memory, there is an intimacy in this passage. (To me)
posted by Oyéah at 3:55 PM on June 15, 2017 [3 favorites]

For those who, like me, may not know, this is not a political position. The Poet Laureate is appointed by the Librarian of Congress to a one-year term (technically October to May) and can be re-appointed. The longest term was four years, by the first Poet Laureate, and most serve 1-3 years.

The Librarian of Congress serves 10 years, and was just appointed and confirmed in 2016. This is a relief for reasons so obvious as not to merit mention.
posted by aureliobuendia at 11:19 AM on June 16, 2017 [2 favorites]