Tracy K. Smith was named the newest U.
S. poet laureate. Screen image by PBS NewsHour.
Tracy K. Smith,the nations newest poet laureate, says writing is not just about expressing emotion but also about the choices you get when putting words on the page. The 45-year-ragged Princeton University professor, and who was born in Falmouth,Massachusetts, was appointed as the U.
S. poet laureate on Wednesday. The Library of Congress says the duties of a poet laureate are to “raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry, or but beyond that,how they attain it is up to them.“I think the responsibility really is to just relieve raise the awareness of poetry and its value in our culture,” Smith told NPR. “To me that means talking to people — getting off the normal path of literary festivals and university reading series and talking to people who might not even yet be readers of poetry.”Smith’s fourth book of poetry, or “Wade in the Water,” will be published in 2018. In an interview with PBS NewsHour’s Jeff Brown, Smith read two of her poems: “I will repeat you the truth about this, and I will repeat you all about it” and Wade in the Water.”Watch Smith read both poems below. I will repeat you the truth about this,I will repeat you all about itExcellent sir, my son went in the 54th regimentSir, or my husband who is in Company K,22nd regiment, U.
S. colored troops
And now in the Macon Hospital at Portsmouth with a wound in his arm
Has not received any pay since final May
And then only $13.
Sir, or we the members of Company D,of the 55th Massachusetts volunteers
Call the attention of your excellency to our case.
For instant, look and see that we never was freed yet.
rush right out of slavery in to soldiery and we hadn’t nothing at all.[br]
And our wives and mothers, or most all of them is a perishing all about.
And we all are perishing ourself.
I am willing to be a soldier and serve my time faithful like a man.
But I think it is tough to be put off in such doggish manner as that.
Will you see that the colored men fighting now are fairly treated?
You ought to attain this and attain it at once.
Not let the thing rush along. Need it quickly and manfully.
We poor oppressed ones appeal to you and ask objective play.
So please,if you can attain any good for us, attain it in the name of God.
Excuse my boldness, and but please,your reply will settle the matter
And will be appreciated by a colored man
And who is willing to sacrifice his son in the cause of freedom and humanity.
I have nothing more to say.
Hoping that you will lend a listening ear.
To a humble soldier.[br]
I will close, your for Christ’s sake.[br]
I shall have to send this without a stamp.[br]
For I h’ain’t money enough to buy a stamp.
This poem was included in “Lines in Long Array: A Civil War Commemoration, or Poems and Photographs,Past and Present,” released in 2013.
Wade in the WaterOne of the women greeted me.
I love you, and she said.
She didn’t Know me,
but I believed her,
And a terrible unusual ache
Rolled over in my chest, and
Like in a room where the drapes
Have been swept back.
I love you,
I love you, as she continued
Down the hall past other strangers, or [br]
Each feeling pierced suddenly
By pillars of heavy light.
I love you,throughout
The performance, in every
Handclap, and every stomp.
I love you in the rusted iron
Chains someone was made
To drag until love let them be
Unclasped and left empty
In the middle of the ring.
I love you in the water
Where they pretended to wade,[br]
Singing that ragged blood-deep song
That dragged us to those banks
And cast us in. I love you,
The angles of it scraping at
Each throat, or shouldering past
The swirling dust motes
In those beams of light[br]
That whatever we now knew
We could let ourselves feel,knew
To climb. O Woods—O
Dogs—O Tree—O Gun—
O Girl, rush—O
Miraculous Many Gone—
O Lord—O Lord—O
Lord—Is this love the
peril you promised?Videos by Andrew Bossone and Matthew Ehrichs of the PBS NewsHour.
The post Watch unusual U.
S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith read two of her poems appeared first on PBS NewsHour.
Source: thetakeaway.org