Tracy K Smith
Biographic Data
| ID | 1017767 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tracy K Smith |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tracy K |
| FAMILY NAME | Smith |
| SIGNATURE | SMITH T K |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
Mothership
PHOTO BY GREG RAKOZY / UNSPLASH POETRY Mothership by Tracy K. Smith You cannot see the Mothership in space, It and She being made of the same thing. All our mothers hover there in the ceaseless blue-black, watching it ripple and dim to the prized pale blue in which we spin— we who are Black, and you, too. Our mothers know each other there, fully and finally. They see what some here see and call anomaly: the way the sight of me might set off a shi…
Visitation, and: "Incentive, and: A Poem Is Always Married to Someone"-Rene Char, and: 4 1⁄2, and: In Your Condition
Visitation, and: Incentive, and: A Poem Is Always Married to Someone”—Rene Char, and: 4 1⁄2, and: In Your Condition Tracy K. Smith (bio) VISITATION When I opened the doorShe rose on her coils. I’d never seenA green like that before— Heady, wet, dark as death.My feet were lead, My hands upsetEvery little thing they touched. And she just watched.Cool bitch who’d been there Who knows how long, idlingBeneath our bed, the table where we ate, Sliding w…
Picnic
Picnic Yi Lei Translated by Tracy K. Smith (bio) and Changtai Bi Daylight tumbles down the great grassy hillWhere we feast on fish simmered in cloves and cinnamon,Where we feast on the whiskers peppering your chin. Why not let your beard go long, shambolic Like a sage or savage? Just once, I’d like to be a savage ... Oh, let’s eat, let’s eat!Let’s swallow up expensive wineAnd buttered black bread. Let’s eat your hands, lifting off like astonished…
New Road Station
New Road Station Tracy K. Smith (bio) History is in a hurry. It moves like a woman Corralling her children onto a crowded bus. History spits Go, go, go, lurching at the horizon, Hammering the driver’s headrest with her fist. Nothing else moves. The flies settle in place Watching with their million eyes, never bored. The crows strike their bargain with the breeze. They cluck and caw at the women in their frenzy, The ones who suck their teeth, whos…
Minister of Saudade
1. The water is full of blue paint From all the little fishing boats Corralled for Sunday, abob in the breeze. What kind of game is the sea? Lap and drag. Crag and gleam. That continual work of wave And tide, like a wet wind, blowing The earth down to nothing. Our lives are small. And mine Is small and sharp. I try to toss it Off into the distance, forget it For good. Then my foot steps down Onto an edge and it's mine again, All prick and spine. …
Astral
Astral Tracy K. Smith (bio) It begins with a finger on the switch, Eyes open in the dark until I see—what Do I see? That empty scrap and scrabble Etched in static above the bed. But isn't it something? A baby's thigh, A carriage? A half-scallop with a lady in it? The heart slows. A procession through snow. All that bad tv, weak signals. But I follow. What collides? What is this real thing That happens only at night? * * * My husband is far off an…
Flores Woman
Flores Woman Tracy K. Smith (bio) A species of tiny human has been discovered, which lived on the remote Indonesian island of Flores just 18,000 years ago. . . . Researchers have so far unearthed remains from eight individuals who were just one metre tall, with grapefruit-sized skulls. These astonishing little people . . . made tools, hunted tiny elephants and lived at the same time as modern humans who were colonizing the area. —Nature, October …
The Nobodies
The Nobodies Tracy K. Smith (bio) Los nadies: los hijos de nadie, los dueños de nada. Los nadies: los ningunos —Eduardo Galeano 1. They rise from the dawn and dress. They raise the bundles to their heads And their shadows broaden— Dark ghosts grounded to nothing. They grin and grip their skirts. They finger the gold and purple beads Circling their necks, lift them Absently to their teeth. They speak A language of kicked stones. And it's not the f…
Something We Need: An Interview with Tracy K. Smith
Tracy K. Smith. Photo by Igor Solis. [End Page 858] This interview was conducted by telephone on June 30, 2004, between College Station, Texas, and Brooklyn, New York, where Tracy Smith lives. ROWELL:The Body's Question is the title of your collection of poems, your very first collection of poems, in fact. What does that title mean? How do you want it to serve us, your readers? SMITH: The title was something that came to me only after I started t…
History
Prologue: This is a poem about the itch That stirs a nation at night. This is a poem about all we'll do Not to scratch— (Where fatigue is great, the mind Will invent entire stories to protect sleep.) Dark stories. Deep fright. Syntax of nonsense. Our prone shape has slept a long time. Our night, many nights— This is a story in the poem's own voice. This is epic. * Part One: Gods and Monsters There is an eagle. The Eagle. The Eagle dreams light, D…
Night Letters
Each night, a small cat steps closer To my window. Braver and braver. Soon there will be tracks like dusky clovers
Wintering
That first night, there was tinny music coming from the kitchen, and men masquerading as monks. You appeared in the dark, two red horns among ink-colored curls. We shared a cup of rum. Your mouth burned like a drunk's when you touched it to mine
Five Dreams of Offspring
Brown leaves Cough at your feet As if to ask What business Is this of yours? As if To keep you from knowing To lift the baby from the water And hold her so she believes She has taken flight. The brown leaves want To wake you, but first They want to call your attention To the heap they have formed Where you stand, Each dark shape a waiting hand
Metaphysical
Metaphysical Tracy K. Smith (bio) What led me there, I don’t know, though I like to imagine my mother, unencumbered by the body, watching me. All I’d wanted was to drive, to go it didn’t matter where. How the car shook, expectant, over sixty. How the lit-end, when I smoked, shone in the windshield at night. I’d wanted problems like those we’d had as children. And if we’ll stick with what’s difficult, I’d wanted to be that, too. I’d wanted all my …
Falling in Love with Numbers
Callaloo - Volume 20, Number 3, Summer 1997
Grammar
Grammar Tracy K. Smith (bio) These logs, hacked so sloppily their blonde grains resemble over-done poultry, are too thick to catch. I crumple papers to encourage the flame, and for a brief moment everything is lit. But the logs haven’t caught, just seem to smolder and shrink as the heat works its way to their center. Getting to what I want will be slow-going and mostly smoke. Years ago during a storm, I knelt before the open side of a blue and wh…
My Favorite Brunette
Callaloo - Volume 20, Number 3, Summer 1997
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Metaphysical
Metaphysical Tracy K. Smith (bio) What led me there, I don’t know, though I like to imagine my mother, unencumbered by the body, watching me. All I’d wanted was to drive, to go it didn’t matter where. How the car shook, expectant, over sixty. How the lit-end, when I smoked, shone in the windshield at night. I’d wanted problems like those we’d had as children. And if we’ll stick with what’s difficult, I’d wanted to be that, too. I’d wanted all my …
Falling in Love with Numbers
Callaloo - Volume 20, Number 3, Summer 1997
Grammar
Grammar Tracy K. Smith (bio) These logs, hacked so sloppily their blonde grains resemble over-done poultry, are too thick to catch. I crumple papers to encourage the flame, and for a brief moment everything is lit. But the logs haven’t caught, just seem to smolder and shrink as the heat works its way to their center. Getting to what I want will be slow-going and mostly smoke. Years ago during a storm, I knelt before the open side of a blue and wh…
My Favorite Brunette
Callaloo - Volume 20, Number 3, Summer 1997
Night Letters
Each night, a small cat steps closer To my window. Braver and braver. Soon there will be tracks like dusky clovers
Wintering
That first night, there was tinny music coming from the kitchen, and men masquerading as monks. You appeared in the dark, two red horns among ink-colored curls. We shared a cup of rum. Your mouth burned like a drunk's when you touched it to mine
Five Dreams of Offspring
Brown leaves Cough at your feet As if to ask What business Is this of yours? As if To keep you from knowing To lift the baby from the water And hold her so she believes She has taken flight. The brown leaves want To wake you, but first They want to call your attention To the heap they have formed Where you stand, Each dark shape a waiting hand
The Nobodies
The Nobodies Tracy K. Smith (bio) Los nadies: los hijos de nadie, los dueños de nada. Los nadies: los ningunos —Eduardo Galeano 1. They rise from the dawn and dress. They raise the bundles to their heads And their shadows broaden— Dark ghosts grounded to nothing. They grin and grip their skirts. They finger the gold and purple beads Circling their necks, lift them Absently to their teeth. They speak A language of kicked stones. And it's not the f…
Something We Need: An Interview with Tracy K. Smith
Tracy K. Smith. Photo by Igor Solis. [End Page 858] This interview was conducted by telephone on June 30, 2004, between College Station, Texas, and Brooklyn, New York, where Tracy Smith lives. ROWELL:The Body's Question is the title of your collection of poems, your very first collection of poems, in fact. What does that title mean? How do you want it to serve us, your readers? SMITH: The title was something that came to me only after I started t…
History
Prologue: This is a poem about the itch That stirs a nation at night. This is a poem about all we'll do Not to scratch— (Where fatigue is great, the mind Will invent entire stories to protect sleep.) Dark stories. Deep fright. Syntax of nonsense. Our prone shape has slept a long time. Our night, many nights— This is a story in the poem's own voice. This is epic. * Part One: Gods and Monsters There is an eagle. The Eagle. The Eagle dreams light, D…
Minister of Saudade
1. The water is full of blue paint From all the little fishing boats Corralled for Sunday, abob in the breeze. What kind of game is the sea? Lap and drag. Crag and gleam. That continual work of wave And tide, like a wet wind, blowing The earth down to nothing. Our lives are small. And mine Is small and sharp. I try to toss it Off into the distance, forget it For good. Then my foot steps down Onto an edge and it's mine again, All prick and spine. …
Astral
Astral Tracy K. Smith (bio) It begins with a finger on the switch, Eyes open in the dark until I see—what Do I see? That empty scrap and scrabble Etched in static above the bed. But isn't it something? A baby's thigh, A carriage? A half-scallop with a lady in it? The heart slows. A procession through snow. All that bad tv, weak signals. But I follow. What collides? What is this real thing That happens only at night? * * * My husband is far off an…
Flores Woman
Flores Woman Tracy K. Smith (bio) A species of tiny human has been discovered, which lived on the remote Indonesian island of Flores just 18,000 years ago. . . . Researchers have so far unearthed remains from eight individuals who were just one metre tall, with grapefruit-sized skulls. These astonishing little people . . . made tools, hunted tiny elephants and lived at the same time as modern humans who were colonizing the area. —Nature, October …
New Road Station
New Road Station Tracy K. Smith (bio) History is in a hurry. It moves like a woman Corralling her children onto a crowded bus. History spits Go, go, go, lurching at the horizon, Hammering the driver’s headrest with her fist. Nothing else moves. The flies settle in place Watching with their million eyes, never bored. The crows strike their bargain with the breeze. They cluck and caw at the women in their frenzy, The ones who suck their teeth, whos…
Visitation, and: "Incentive, and: A Poem Is Always Married to Someone"-Rene Char, and: 4 1⁄2, and: In Your Condition
Visitation, and: Incentive, and: A Poem Is Always Married to Someone”—Rene Char, and: 4 1⁄2, and: In Your Condition Tracy K. Smith (bio) VISITATION When I opened the doorShe rose on her coils. I’d never seenA green like that before— Heady, wet, dark as death.My feet were lead, My hands upsetEvery little thing they touched. And she just watched.Cool bitch who’d been there Who knows how long, idlingBeneath our bed, the table where we ate, Sliding w…
Picnic
Picnic Yi Lei Translated by Tracy K. Smith (bio) and Changtai Bi Daylight tumbles down the great grassy hillWhere we feast on fish simmered in cloves and cinnamon,Where we feast on the whiskers peppering your chin. Why not let your beard go long, shambolic Like a sage or savage? Just once, I’d like to be a savage ... Oh, let’s eat, let’s eat!Let’s swallow up expensive wineAnd buttered black bread. Let’s eat your hands, lifting off like astonished…
Mothership
PHOTO BY GREG RAKOZY / UNSPLASH POETRY Mothership by Tracy K. Smith You cannot see the Mothership in space, It and She being made of the same thing. All our mothers hover there in the ceaseless blue-black, watching it ripple and dim to the prized pale blue in which we spin— we who are Black, and you, too. Our mothers know each other there, fully and finally. They see what some here see and call anomaly: the way the sight of me might set off a shi…
Art (14 works) · Art history (13 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Visual arts (8 works) · History (7 works) · Literature (7 works) · Poetry (6 works) · Nothing (5 works) · Aesthetics (4 works) · Educational Leadership and Practices (4 works)