缅北禁地

缅北禁地 has announced the Summer Reading Program selection for 2025 is Tracy K. Smith鈥檚 memoir Ordinary Light, a finalist for the National Book Award. The College will welcome Smith, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and memoirist, to campus in the fall 2025 semester.

About the Book

Ordinary Light covers the years between Smith鈥檚 elementary school years and her college years and ends with the loss of her mother when Smith was in her early 20s. The memoir recounts various impactful moments. Through these vignettes, Smith explores how family, faith, education 鈥� and, finally, loss 鈥� helped shape her sense of identity.听

鈥淥rdinary Light explores themes and experiences that will be familiar to Meredith students and raises issues around identity that many young people face in college,鈥� said Ashley Hogan, co-chair of the Summer Reading Program Committee. 鈥淎dditionally, the memoir鈥檚 complexity and literary merit will challenge and enrich incoming students.鈥�

About the Author

is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, memoirist, editor, translator, and librettist. She served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2017-19, during which time she spearheaded American Conversations: Celebrating Poetry in Rural Communities with the Library of Congress, created the American Public Media podcast聽The Slowdown, and edited the anthology聽.

Smith is the author of five poetry collections:聽, which won the 2022 New England Book Award;聽, which was awarded the 2018 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award;聽, which won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize;聽, winner of the 2006 James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets; and聽, which received the 2003 Cave Canem Prize. Her memoir,聽, was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in nonfiction. Her memoir-manifesto,聽, was a聽Time聽magazine and聽Washington Post聽Best Book of the Year, and a聽New York Times聽Book Review Editors’ Choice. Her next book,聽聽(W. W. Norton & Company, November 18, 2025), will be an exploration of poetry itself. Smith will show聽how reading and writing poetry allows us to confront life鈥檚 many uncertainties and losses, to build camaraderie with strangers, and to understand ourselves.

Among Smith鈥檚 other honors are a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Academy Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets, the Harvard Arts Medal, the Columbia Medal for Excellence, a Smithsonian Ingenuity Award, and an Essence Literary Award. She is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. She is also the recipient of聽.

She is a聽聽at Harvard University and a Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at聽.听

Additional Student Programming

In addition to offering an evening campus and community-wide lecture featuring Smith, Meredith will host a book signing, a luncheon with students and faculty, and other student-focused programming. In the fall, all English 111 instructors will assign her work in their classes, and First Year Experience classes will have an assignment related to the memoir.

First-year students will also discuss the book in their advising groups, facilitated by their Faculty Advisor or another faculty/staff member and their Student Advisor, early in the fall semester.

The author visit is co-sponsored by the Department of English and the Lillian Parker Wallace Fund.

Learn more about the 2025 Summer Reading Program