{"title":"Tracy K. Smith","description":"Tracy K. Smith is the author of two previous poetry collections: Duende, winner of the James Laughlin Award, and The Body's Question, winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. She teaches at Princeton University and lives in Brooklyn, New York.","products":[{"product_id":"fear-less-poetry-in-perilous-times-hardcover","title":"Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times - Hardcover","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDrawing on deep passion and personal experience, former US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith demystifies the art form that has too often been mischaracterized as \"inaccessible,\" \"irrelevant,\" or \"intimidating.\" She argues that poetry is rooted in fundamentally human qualities innate to our capacities to love, dream, question, and cultivate community. Lifting the veil on her own creative process, Smith shows us how reading and writing poetry allows us to better confront life's many uncertainties and losses, build camaraderie with strangers, and understand ourselves more fully. In six insightful chapters, she grounds readers in the technical elements of the craft and provides close readings of the works of contemporary poets such as Joy Harjo, Danez Smith, and Francisco Márquez, alongside classic poems by Dickinson, Keats, Millay, and others. By reimaging and reexamining the age-old art form, \u003cem\u003eFear Less\u003c\/em\u003e is a warm invitation to find meaning, consolation, and hope through poetry for poetry fans and newcomers to the art form.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51376644030687,"sku":"9781324050988","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/LicCYx45IX9781324050988.webp?v=1789218241"},{"product_id":"life-on-mars-paperback","title":"Life on Mars - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003e* Poet Laureate of the United States *\u003cbr\u003e* A\u003c\/i\u003e New York Times\u003ci\u003e Notable Book of 2011 and\u003c\/i\u003e New York Times Book Review \u003ci\u003eEditors' Choice *\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e* A\u003c\/i\u003e New Yorker, Library Journal \u003ci\u003eand\u003c\/i\u003e Publishers Weekly \u003ci\u003eBest Book of the Year *\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eNew poetry by the award-winning poet Tracy K. Smith, whose \"lyric brilliance and political impulses never falter\" (\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review) \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eYou lie there kicking like a baby, waiting for God himself \u003cbr\u003eTo lift you past the rungs of your crib. What \u003cbr\u003eWould your life say if it could talk? \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e --from \"No Fly Zone\" \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith allusions to David Bowie and interplanetary travel, \u003ci\u003eLife on Mars \u003c\/i\u003eimagines a soundtrack for the universe to accompany the discoveries, failures, and oddities of human existence. In these brilliant new poems, Tracy K. Smith envisions a sci-fi future sucked clean of any real dangers, contemplates the dark matter that keeps people both close and distant, and revisits the kitschy concepts like \"love\" and \"illness\" now relegated to the Museum of Obsolescence. These poems reveal the realities of life lived here, on the ground, where a daughter is imprisoned in the basement by her own father, where celebrities and pop stars walk among us, and where the poet herself loses her father, one of the engineers who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope. With this remarkable third collection, Smith establishes herself among the best poets of her generation.","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51378332336351,"sku":"9781555975845","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/gDb8lXqE0y9781555975845.webp?v=1789254422"},{"product_id":"to-free-the-captives-a-plea-for-the-american-soul-paperback","title":"To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eTIME \u003c\/i\u003eAND \u003ci\u003eWASHINGTON POST \u003c\/i\u003eBEST BOOK OF THE YEAR - \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review \u003c\/i\u003eEditors' Choice - A stunning personal manifesto on memory, family, and history that explores how we in America might--together--come to a new view of our shared past\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"A vulnerable, honest look at a life lived in a country still struggling with its evils...Hopeful...Beautiful and haunting.\" --Eddie S. Glaude Jr., author of \u003ci\u003eBegin Again\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn 2020, heartsick from constant assaults on Black life, Tracy K. Smith found herself soul-searching and digging into the historical archive for help navigating the \"din of human division and strife.\" With lyricism and urgency, 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eTo Free the Captives\u003c\/i\u003e touches down in Sunflower, Alabama, the red-dirt town where Smith's father's family comes from, and where her grandfather returned after World War I with a hero's record but difficult prospects as a Black man. Smith considers his life and the life of her father through the lens of history. Hoping to connect with their strength and continuance, she assembles a new terminology of American life. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBearing courageous witness to the terms of Freedom afforded her as a Black woman, a mother, and an educator in the twenty-first century, Smith etches a portrait of where we find ourselves four hundred years into the American experiment. Weaving in an account of her growing spiritual practice, she argues that the soul is not merely a private site of respite or transcendence, but a tool for fulfilling our duties to each other, and a sounding board for our most pressing collective questions: Where are we going as a nation? Where have we been?","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51381310456031,"sku":"9780593467985","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/82NTlWRdMh9780593467985.webp?v=1789282907"}],"url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/collections\/tracy-k-smith.oembed","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}