97 Quotes by Tracy K. Smith

I grew up in northern California in a town called Fairfield, which is kind of exactly between San Francisco and Sacramento, a small suburb. And I'm the youngest of five children.

So much of my poetry begins with something that I can describe in visual terms, so thinking about distance, thinking about how life begins and what might be watching us.

I feel like it's a gift for any writer to be recognized like this.

Keetje Kuipers' poems are daring, formally beautiful and driven by rich imagery and startling ideas.

I've been beating my head all day long on the same six lines,

When I was young, my father was lord Of a small kingdom: a wife, a garden, Kids for whom his word was Word. It took years for my view to harden, To shrink him to human size.

History, with its hard spine & dog-eared Corners, will be replaced with nuance, Just like the dinosaurs gave way To mounds and mounds of ice.

If I call it pain, and try to touch it With my hands, my own life, It lies still and the music thins, A pulse felt for through garments.

Brooklyn is kind of my writer's retreat.