United States Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith signing books after reading a few of her poems for her book "Life on Mars" in the Vonnie Borden Theatre.
Jonathan Rhodes/The Lion's Roar 

United States Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, author of the Pulitzer Prize Award-winning book “Life on Mars,” came to the university’s “Common Read” program to see presentations of her work from students, answer questions about her works, and gave a public reading in Vonnie Borden Theatre.

According to Smith, the book is an elegy for Smith’s father who died in 2008 and was a scientist that worked on the Hubble Space Telescope. The poems are filled with references to outer space while also addressing human issues on planet earth.

One of the poems that Smith read from “Life on Mars” is called “The Angels,” and she explained the inspiration for the poem.

“It’s this story of near death experiences that people have and are compelled to share,” said Smith. “When someone flat lines on the operating table for a minute or a few seconds and during that time experiences a departure of the physical body and descends into a different dimension. They look back and say, ‘Oh, I remembered that love is the animating force of the universe. That is why we are here. I had to come back because I’m not done learning this thing.’”

After the public reading, students got their chance to ask Smith questions about the book and about specific poems.

“It was cool and interesting to see where she got her ideas from,” said freshman psychology major Joshua Fangue. “I liked most of her poems because she drew a lot of her inspirations from David Bowie, and I am a big fan, so I can see the little things that she saw.”

Smith was appointed the U.S. Poet Laureate in 2017 by the Library of Congress. Smith is also the Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor in the Humanities and director of the Creative Writing Program at Princeton University.

Smith’s unique poetry style along with her being the U.S. Poet Laureate was the reason that she was chosen for “Common Read” according to English Department Head Dr. David Hanson.

“The students asked really splendid questions all day long,” said Hanson. “They got the poetry very well. Her poetry is not simple poetry, but it is not difficult to understand. Plus there were things that even though they were before their generation, they all knew about David Bowie and about sci-fi, so those things were easy to connect with.”