It's the Brian Lear Show on WNYC. Good morning. I'm David First, WNYC's weekend edition host, filling in for Brian.

And now we're going to talk about a book that invites us to see what poems can

open up in our lives. Tracy K. Smith's new book, Fearless, poetry in perilous times, is a hybrid

of close reading, memoir, cultural criticism, and curated anthology. Many of the chapters take a poet's work as a starting point,

then open into a broader reflection that mixes personal experience with history

and the civic questions that we're living with.

She writes, there is no formula for reading and responding to poetry.

How could there be when the lyric tradition exists in celebration of the individual self

and its singular experience of the world?

Tracy K. Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet,

U.S. Poet Laureate from 2017 to 2019,

and Professor of English and African

and American Studies at Harvard University. Her latest book is Fearless Poetry in Parallist

Times. And Tracy, welcome back to WNYC. Thanks. It's great to be with you. And to listeners,

if you want to join this conversation,

give us a call. 212-433-9692. Is there a poem or perhaps just a few lines of one that

has stayed with you, helped you through a moment, or changed the way that you see something in your

life. You can read us a short excerpt if you would like, or maybe there's something you've always

wanted to ask, a former U.S. Poet Laureate.

Your poetry questions are welcome for Tracy K. Smith, 212-433-9692.

That's 212-433 WNYC. And can we start with some poetry? Sure. I think you brought two poems

with you. Maybe start with one of them right now, along with any background you want to give us on this

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