Tracy K. Smith

Tracy K. Smith (born April 16, 1972) is an African-American poet and academic.

Life
Smith was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts. She has a B.A. from Harvard University and an M.F.A. in Creative writing from Columbia University. From 1997 to 1999 she was a Stegner Fellow in poetry at Stanford University. Currently she is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Princeton University.

Smith lives in Brooklyn, New York City, with her husband, Raphael Allison, and their daughter.

Writing
She has published three collections of poetry. About her most recent collection, Life on Mars (2011), Joel Brouwer wrote: "Smith shows herself to be a poet of extraordinary range and ambition.... As all the best poetry does, “Life on Mars” first sends us out into the magnificent chill of the imagination and then returns us to ourselves, both changed and consoled. "

Recognition

 * Grant from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation
 * Fellowship from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.
 * Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award.
 * Whiting Writers' Award in 2005 for poetry.
 * James Laughlin Award in 2006 for Duende.
 * Essence Literary Award in 2008 for Duende.
 * Rolex Mentor & Protégé Arts Initiative in 2010.
 * James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets 2006

Publications

 * The Body’s Question (2003), Graywolf Press; won the 2002 Cave Canem Prize for the best first book by an African-American poet (selected by Kevin Young ).
 * Duende (2007), Graywolf Press; won the 2006 James Laughlin Award.
 * Life on Mars (2011), Graywolf Press.

Anthologized

 * Poetry 30: Thirty-Something Thirty-Something American Poets