Summer Reading Program 2025
Ordinary Light
by Tracy K. Smith
2025 Summer Reading Program
Ãå±±½ûµØ is delighted to welcome acclaimed poet and memorist Tracy K. Smith to campus in the fall 2025 semester. The reading selection for this year’s program is Smith’s memoir, Ordinary Light.
Contact Information
Chrissie Bumgardner
Co-Director, First Year Experience
bumgardner@meredith.edu
Lisa BrownÌý
Co-Director, First Year Experience
lmbrown@meredith.edu
Ordinary Light
Tracy K. Smith’s memoir, Ordinary Light, covers the years between her elementary school and her college and ends with the loss of her mother when Smith was in her early 20s. The memoir recounts various impactful moments in Smith’s childhood. Through these vignettes, Smith explores how family, faith, education – and, finally, loss – helped shape her sense of identity.
Ordinary Light explores themes and experiences that will be familiar to Meredith students and raises issues around identity that many young people face in college. Additionally, the memoir’s complexity and literary merit will challenge and enrich incoming students.
Tracy K. Smith’s Biography
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 podcastÌýThe Slowdown, and edited the anthologyÌý.
Smith is the author of five poetry collections:Ìý, which won the 2022 New England Book Award;Ìý, which was awarded the 2018 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award;Ìý, which won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize;Ìý, winner of the 2006 James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets; andÌý, which received the 2003 Cave Canem Prize. Her memoir,Ìý, was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in nonfiction. Her memoir-manifesto,Ìý, was aÌýTimeÌýmagazine andÌýWashington PostÌýBest Book of the Year, and aÌýNew York TimesÌýBook Review Editors’ Choice. Her next book,ÌýÌý(W. W. Norton & Company, November 18, 2025), will be an exploration of poetry itself. Smith will showÌýhow reading and writing poetry allows us to confront life’s many uncertainties and losses, to build camaraderie with strangers, and to understand ourselves.
Smith was the co-translator (with Changtai Bi) ofÌý, which was a finalist for the 2021 Griffin Poetry Prize; and co-editor (with John Freeman) ofÌý.
Smith wrote the libretti for three operas;Ìý,Ìýin collaboration with composer Gregory Spears, is rooted in a conflict over historically black-owned land. The work premiered with the Cincinnati Opera in July 2022. The other,Ìý, with composer Judd Greenstein and video artist Joshua Frankel, is about two competing visions of progress in New York City.ÌýShe also wrote a Civil War Oratorio with Aaron Siegel titledÌý. Her newest libretto is forÌýÌýwith composer Gregory Spears which will make its world premiere on July 13, 2024 at the Santa Fe Opera.Ìý
Among Smith’s 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 ofÌý.
She is aÌýÌýat Harvard University and a Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor atÌý.Ìý
Photo credit: Andrew Kelly
Summer Reading Programming
In addition to offering a campus and community-wide lecture featuring Smith, we 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.
