a poem is an invitation
Resources for teachers • classes for writers • tours/appearances •
Official Website of Tracy K. Smith, 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Life on Mars.
in bookstores NOVEMBER 18, 2025
The Pulitzer Prize–winning poet reveals how poetry is a powerful tool of connection and understanding in a fractured world.
It sometimes feels that we've been drawn into a collective vocabulary of outrage and division--and, by extension, a climate of toxic and sometimes lethal disregard. But I believe we have it within our power to can change this. In Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times, I argue that feeling and responding to the effects of a poem is one way of pushing back against an increasing threat to our collective future: the weapon of inaccurate, misleading and divisive language.