Tracy K. Smith Ms. Heeney’s Class Additional Notes

Transcript:Tracy K. Smith Ms. Heeney’s Class Additional Notes:
Tracy K. Smith Ms. Heeney’s Class Additional Notes ‹#› For newly named U.S. poet laureate, the power of poetry is opening ourselves to others ‹#› Art Works Podcast: a conversation with Tracy K. Smith about poetry, history, memory, and wonder ‹#› Studied Poems : ‘Joy’ ‘Letter to a Photojournalist Going-In’ ‘The Universe is a House Party’ ‘It’s Not’ ‘The Greatest Personal Privation’ ‘Ghazal’ ‹#› Biographical Details Tracy K. Smith was born on 16 April 1972 in Falmouth, Massachusetts. The youngest of five children, she was known to the rest of the family as ‘Kitten’. Shortly after she was born, the family moved to Fairfield, California. Smith’s father, Floyd, who later worked on the Hubble Space Telescope, was an engineer at the nearby Travis Air Force Base. Smith’s mother, Kathryn, worked for a while as an adult education teacher but largely devoted herself to her family, church and community. Smith grew up in comfortable surroundings and received a great deal of attention from her parents when she was learning to read and write. Indeed, language was to form a particularly strong link between the young Smith and her devoted mother and father. Smith’s childhood home was a place where both religious faith and scientific curiosity were strongly present. Kathryn Smith was a devout Christian, but her belief expressed itself far more in terms of trust in God than in any kind of dogmatism or anger. Floyd tended to focus instead on the power of science and on life in this world. At one point, for example, he installed an incubator in their home so that Smith could learn about how birds were hatched. It is perhaps little wonder that tensions and connections between spirituality and science would be explored so often in the poetry that Smith would later write. ‹#› Smith’s school teachers soon spotted her budding literary skills and encouraged her to fully develop them. Another important early event was Smith’s first encounter with the poetry of Emily Dickinson, who was to remain a major influence throughout Smith’s literary career. In her memoir, Ordinary Light, Smith vividly recalls the sudden flash of recognition that she felt when she first read Dickinson’s poem ‘I’m Nobody! Who Are You? She recalls feeling that somehow Dickinson knew more about her than she did herself. That aside, Smith valued Dickinson for her highly original use of biblical cadences and her daring ability to coin