The Spirit That is Charged

The Spirit That Is Charged: A Conversation about Poetry and Friendship with Tina Chang and Tracy K. Smith

When writers talk to each other, things happen: ideas are born, values are named and claimed, the spark of a new idea takes shape. Such conversations fortify the creative life, creating a place of safety and certainty from which to venture out, and fostering fearlessness in the face of the blank page.

One-time classmates and longtime friends, poets Tina Chang and Tracy K. Smith, draw upon years of private correspondence, exploring how their intimate exchange has shaped their work, illuminated their individual creative processes, and added meaning to their understanding of the writer’s life.

Brooklyn Poet Laureate Tina Chang is the author of the poetry collections Half-Lit Houses(2004) and Of Gods & Strangers (2011). She is also co-editor of the Norton anthology Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond. Her poems have been published in such journals asAmerican Poet, McSweeney’s, The New York Times and Ploughshares. She has received awards from the Academy of American Poets, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and Poets & Writers, among others. She teaches poetry at Sarah Lawrence College and is a member of the international writing faculty at the City University of Hong Kong, the first low-residency MFA program to be established in Asia.

Whiting Award winner Tracy K. Smith is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Ordinary Light (Knopf, 2015) and three books of poetry. Her collection Life on Mars won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize and was selected as a New York Times Notable Book. Duende won the 2006 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets and an Essence Literary Award, and The Body’s Question was selected by Kevin Young for the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. In 2014, Smith received the Academy of American Poets’ Academy Fellowship for distinguished poetic achievement. She is the Director of Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program.

General Admission $10 / Students $5 in advance or at the door.Reservations recommended: seating limited.