TRACY K. SMITH: U.S. Poet Laureate to speak in Glasgow

TRACY K. SMITH, the current U.S. Poet Laureate, will speak in Glasgow on March 16

The Kentucky Humanities Council and The Poetry & Literature Center of the Library of Congress have partnered to bring U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith to Kentucky later this month. Smith will speak at the South Central Kentucky Cultural Center in one of two stops in the 2nd Congressional District as part of the National Project Rural Tour.

Tracy K. Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and a professor of creative writing at Princeton University. She earned a BA from Harvard University and an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University. Smith, the author of three books of poetry and a memoir, has received the Cave Canem prize, the James Laughlin Award, and the Essence Literary Award, among others. She was a Stegner fellow at Stanford University and was awarded an Academy of American Poets fellowship in 2014. Her fourth collection, Wade in the Water, will be released in April 2018. In June 2017, Smith was named U.S. poet laureate.

Smith will begin her Kentucky tour on Friday, March 16 with an evening event at the Cultural Center in Glasgow. In addition to a poetry reading, Smith will be joined by Kentucky Poet Laureate Frederick Smock for a moderated discussion on the role of the poet laureate and outreach to rural communities. The event begins at 6 p.m. and is expected to conclude at 7:30 p.m. The center is located at 200 W. Water Street in Glasgow. The event is free and open to the public.

Smith’s Kentucky tour will continue the next morning, March 17 at the New Haven branch of the Nelson County Public Library. The library will host a public event geared toward middle school-aged students and their families about how poetry can help them understand important life concepts. The hour-long event will begin at 10:30 a.m. EDT.