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From KQED.

Thank you, E. From KQVD in San Francisco, I'm Nina Kim. Coming up on forum, Tracy K. Smith's latest book is both a memoir and an examination of race in America.

And in looking back at generations of her family history, Smith has assembled, quote,

a new terminology of American life. We'll talk with the former U.S. Poet Laureate about that new language

for understanding how we relate to each other and how it might open up new ways of

connecting across division and strife. Smith grew up in California and is the author of

five books of poetry, one of which won the Pulitzer Prize. Her new memoir is called

To Free the Captives. Join us.

Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.

I am searching for the sole family from whom I descend.

That's how Pulitzer Prize-winning former U.S. poet laureate, Tracy K. Smith, describes the impulse animating her latest book called To Free the Captives,

a plea for the American soul. It's a chronicle of her efforts to learn more about her father

and her ancestors and what that process revealed to her about herself and our nation.

Tracy K. Smith, professor of English and African American Studies at Harvard, joins me now. Welcome to Forum.

...