Tracy K. Smith, Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet, to Visit NDMU

By: Erik Pedersen, Senior Communications Manager

BALTIMORE – Tracy K. Smith, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and a two-term Poet Laureate of the United States, will visit Notre Dame of Maryland University on Thursday, February 23 at 7 p.m. as the 2022-23 writer in the annual Eichner Women Writers Series.

Smith received the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her third book of poems, Life on Mars, and she served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 2017-19. An evening lecture in Doyle Formal will include readings of Smith’s work and a book signing. It is free and open to all members of the NDMU community and general public.

Smith has been featured in several prominent publications in recent years, including Time Magazine, O, The Oprah Magazine, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, Life on Mars, was a New York Times Notable Book, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and a New Yorker, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. Other award-winning publications by Smith include her debut collection, The Body’s Question, Duende, Wade in the Water, and her memoir, Ordinary Light.

During her two terms as U.S. Poet Laureate, Smith traveled across America to host poetry readings and conversations in rural communities. She is a Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute and a professor of English and of African and African American Studies in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

The Eichner Women Writers Series launched in 2017 in honor of Sister Maura Eichner, SSND, a professor in the English Department who built a legacy during her 50 years at Notre Dame. Eichner was nationally recognized for her poetry and had strong connections with her contemporaries in the writing community.

Established in 1895, Notre Dame of Maryland University (NDMU) is a private, Catholic institution in Baltimore, Maryland, with the mission to educate leaders to transform the world. Notre Dame has been named one of the best "Regional Universities North" by U.S. News & World Report.