'Listen, and Be Curious'

 

“Literature allows us to be open, to listen, and to be curious.” —Tracy K. Smith

Born on this date in 1972, poet and educator Smith served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2017 to 2019.   She has published four collections of poetry, winning the Pulitzer Prize for her 2011 volume Life on Mars.  Her memoir, Ordinary Light, was published in 2015.   Smith has taught at the City University of New York, the University of Pittsburgh, and Columbia University.  

 

She taught 3 summer sessions at Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College and was the 2014 Robert Frost Chair of Literature.  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Smith’s,

 

          The Universe:  Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

 

The first track still almost swings. High hat and snare, even
A few bars of sax the stratosphere will singe-out soon enough.

Synthesized strings. Then something like cellophane
Breaking in as if snagged to a shoe. Crinkle and drag. White noise,

Black noise. What must be voices bob up, then drop, like metal shavings
In molasses. So much for us. So much for the flags we bore.

Into planets dry as chalk, for the tin cans we filled with fire
And rode like cowboys into all we tried to tame. Listen:

The dark we've only ever imagined now audible, thrumming,
Marbled with static like gristly meat. A chorus of engines churns.

Silence taunts: a dare. Everything that disappears
Disappears as if returning somewhere.