Tracy K. Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, memoirist, editor, translator and opera librettist. She served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2017-19, during which time she spearheaded American Conversations: Celebrating Poems in Rural Communities with the Library of Congress, launched the American Public Media podcast The Slowdown, and edited the anthology American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time. She is a professor of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University.