Wade in the Water

Tracy K. Smith is a contemporary American poet and former United States Poet Laureate (2017-2019), who has written four books of poetry (The Body’s Question, Duende, Life on Mars, and Wade in the Water), one memoir (Ordinary Light), as well as translated a book of poems by Yi Lei. She has also published an anthology of poetry called American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time. In the introduction to that anthology, she states that one of the reasons she loves poetry is because poetry offers the opportunity to meet speakers that she would “never get the chance to meet were it not for the poem. Because the distance between us is too great” (Smith, Tracy K. Introduction. American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time, by Graywolf Press, 2018.). Her poetry seeks to explore issues beyond the personal, searching for connections we have to each other. As US Poet Laureate, the third African American woman to hold that position, her mission was to reach a broad American audience, despite the seemingly deep divisions in society that might make such a bridge impossible.

The title poem from Wade in the Water (2018) is about this power of art to bridge distance not only to each other but also to the past.