In the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, it’s easy for families to forget the true meaning of the season. In this new book of faith practices for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, parents, grandparents, Sunday School teachers, pastors, and anyone who cares about kids will find 100 easy, fun, and meaningful ideas for bringing the sacred back into the season. Divided into three sections of prayers, practices, and lessons, with pages decorated with whimsical Christmas doodles from the c...

How do you share the deep mysteries of Lent, Easter, and Resurrection with children? Parents, guardians, teachers, and ministers will find dozens of fun and easy practices for celebrating the Easter season with our kids. The practices and seasonal prayers are grouped into chapters titled Ash Wednesday, Symbols, Lenten Prayers, Lenten Refraining, Lenten Acts of Service, Holy Week, Easter Vigil and Easter Day, and the Season of Resurrection. Smith also offers theological notes guiding parent...

The Purpose of Getting Lost isn't a story about travel-and it isn't a story with a neat ending. There is no final version of the woman at the center of this book, no moment where everything clicks and stays that way.As Tracy Smith approached fifty and her children grew up, she realized she'd spent years taking care of everyone. Everyone but herself. So she booked a trip. Then another. And another. Over time, thirty countries and five continents became less about di...

Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize* Poet Laureate of the United States ** A New York Times Notable Book of 2011 and New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice ** A New Yorker, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year *New poetry by the award-winning poet Tracy K. Smith, whose "lyric brilliance and political impulses never falter" (Publishers Weekly, starred review...

A landmark anthology envisioned by Tracy K. Smith, 22nd Poet Laureate of the United StatesAmerican Journal presents fifty contemporary poems that explore and celebrate our country and our lives. 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States and Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy K. Smith has gathered a remarkable chorus of voices that ring up and down the registers of American poetry. In the elegant arrangement of this anthology, we hear stories from rural communities ...

A Pulitzer Prize–winning poet reveals how poetry is a powerful tool of connection and understanding in a fractured world.Drawing on deep passion and personal experience, former US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith demystifies the art form that has too often been mischaracterized as “inaccessible,” “irrelevant,” or “intimidating.” She argues that poetry is rooted in fundamentally human qualities innate to our capacities to love, dream, question, and cultivate community. ...

The award-winning second collection by the Poet Laureate of the United StatesDuende, that dark and elusive force described by Federico García Lorca, is the creative and ecstatic power an artist seeks to channel from within. It can lead the artist toward revelation, but it must also, Lorca says, accept and even serenade the possibility of death. Tracy K. Smith's bold second poetry collection explores history and the intersections of folk traditions, political resist...

'A poet of extraordinary range and ambition . . . convincing in both the grand gesture and the reverent contemplation of a humble plate of eggs' The New York TimesUS Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith has gathered this selection spanning her entire remarkable career. From the private experience of desire to the devastations of political strife, these poems enlarge our vocabulary for what it means to live, struggle, grieve and love.'Smith...

Duende, that dark and elusive force described by Federico García Lorca, is the creative and ecstatic power an artist seeks to channel from within. It can lead the artist toward revelation, but it must also, Lorca says, accept and even serenade the possibility of death. Tracy K. Smith's bold second poetry collection explores history and the intersections of folk traditions, political resistance, and personal survival. Duende gives passionate testament to suppressed cultures, and allows them...

The debut collection by the Poet Laureate of the United States* Winner of the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize *You are pure appetite. I am pureAppetite. You are a phantomIn that far-off city where daylightClimbs cathedral walls, stone by stolen stone.--from "Self-Portrait as the Letter Y"The Body's Question by Tracy K. Smith received the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Pr...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST COLLECTION 2018A New York Times Notable Book of 2018Even the men in black armor, the onesJangling handcuffs and keys, what elseAre they so buffered against, if not love's bladeSizing up the heart's familiar meat?In Wade in the Water, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith's signature voice - inquisitive, lyrical ...

Sadness and depression can quickly overtake a person. By taking a look at those little Bits and pieces of life that are right there in front of you every single day, you can help yourself up and out of whatever circumstance you are in.Even in times of great stress, there is beauty to be found. Maybe it is just in the song that a little bird in the tree nearby is singing for you. Hear it. Maybe it is just in the scent of a flower. Smell it. Maybe it is just in the flavor of the hone...