American Conversations: Celebrating Poems in Rural Communities with United States Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith

Louisiana is one of four states to have been chosen by Tracy K. Smith, 2018-2019 U.S. Poet Laureate, for her fall tour second term project, “American Conversations: Celebrating Poems in Rural Communities.” During her visit, Smith will travel to communities to read selections of her own poetry and pieces from her anthology “American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time,” and will engage audiences in discussions of the poems. The anthology, which offers 50 different outlooks on America by living American poets of different ages and backgrounds, is being published September 4 by Greywolf Press in association with the Library of Congress.

Smith will visit the Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center in Thibodaux today. Smith’s state appearances in December are being coordinated by the Louisiana Center for the Book in the State Library of Louisiana with the Poetry and Literature Center in the Library of Congress. For more information about the tour (including an exact time for the event) and our nation’s poet laureate, see read.gov/americanconversations/louisiana/index.html.