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Tracy K. Smith 'To Free the Captives'

In-person – Thursday November 16 at 7 pm


Succeed2gether's Montclair Literary Festival is thrilled to invite you to an evening with former Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and poet Tracy K. Smith on Thursday November 16 at 7 p.m. Tracy will be talking about her new book To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul, a self-examination study on memory, family, and history, exploring how we might come together to a new view of our shared past. She will be live for an in-person conversation with Montclair author Dionne Ford.


In 2020, heartsick from constant assaults on Black life, Tracy K. Smith found herself soul-searching, and digging into the historical archive for help navigating the "din of human division and strife." With lyricism and urgency, Smith draws on several avenues of thinking– personal, documentary, and spiritual– to understand who we are as a nation and what we might hope to mean to one another.

“A vulnerable, honest look at a life lived in a country still struggling with its evils. Tracy K. Smith has also written a book for her children and for us. Hopeful, despite all that she sees and feels so deeply, that the freed will soon be truly free. Beautiful and haunting all at once.”—Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

To Free the Captives begins this journey by assembling a new terminology of American life. Parsing the difference between Free and the Freed, the distance between Time Ago and Soon, Smith etches a portrait of where we find ourselves four hundred years into the American experiment and offers a compelling argument for the vocabulary of the soul as a tool for fulfilling our duties to each other and to the future. 


Tickets to hear Tracy K. Smith in person cost $35, and include one signed copy of the book To Free the Captives (value $27). Unsigned books will be available to be picked up from Festival partner watchung booksellers after the book's publication on Tuesday November 7, 2023. Books will also be available for collection at the event. Tracy will be signing books after the discussion.


This event will be held in Presentation Hall, The School of Communication and Media, Montclair State University, 1 Normal Ave, Montclair, 07043. Free parking will be available at the Red Hawk Parking Deck for all event ticket holders. If you require any special accommodations to attend, please email [email protected] before the event.

Tracy K. Smith is a librettist, a translator, and the author of five acclaimed poetry collections, including Life on Mars, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Her memoir, Ordinary Light, was a finalist for the National Book Award. From 2017 to 2019, she served as the twenty-second Poet Laureate of the United States. She lives in Massachusetts. Photo credit © Andrew Kelly.


Dionne Ford is the author of the memoir Go Back and Get It and co-editor of the anthology Slavery's Descendants: Shared Legacies of Race and Reconciliation. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Virginia Quarterly Review, LitHub, New Jersey Monthly, Rumpus, and Ebony, and other publications, and won awards from the National Association of Black Journalists and the Newswomen's Club of New York. In 2018, she received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Creative Writing. Grants from the Sustainable Arts Foundation and the Geraldine R. Dodge foundation, and fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Hedgebrook and The Cabins at MarthaMOCA have also supported her work. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University and a BA from Fordham University where she teaches creative writing.



Any proceeds from the festival benefit parent organization, Montclair-based non-profit Succeed2gether, which offers free after-school one-on-one tutoring and enrichment classes with the aim of closing the education and opportunity gaps in Essex County, NJ. You can read more about Succeed2gether and the festival at www.succeed2gether.org.


Succeed2gether's Montclair Literary Festival organizing committee wishes to thank its primary festival partners – Montclair State University, Watchung Booksellers, Montclair Public Library – festival sponsors, event sponsors, our many community supporters and volunteers.






Please note that there are no refunds for this event. If you would prefer to pay by check, please contact Succeed2gether on 973-746-0553.

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Updates

Event information for Tracy K. Smith event TONIGHT

November 16, 2023

Dear Tracy K. Smith fans!


We look forward to seeing you tonight for Tracy's book talk. The event will start at 7:00 pm. 

VENUE
This talk will take place in Presentation Hall, School of Communication and Media, Montclair State University, 1 Normal Ave, Montclair 07043. 

PARKING
To take advantage of the free parking, please park in the Red Hawk parking deck. You will need to take a parking ticket upon entering the deck. Park on the 5th floor for direct access to ground level. There will be an MSU student at the parking deck exit and lawn signs to direct you to the venue, less than five minutes walk from the parking deck exit. You will be given a validated parking ticket to use when exiting the parking deck so you won't need to pay for parking.

DOORS
Doors will open at 6:30 pm.

CHECK-IN
At check-in, please give your name and we will check you in via our ticketing app. If you purchased a ticket for someone else and didn't register their name, please either check in with them or have them know the name of the ticket purchaser so we can search our ticketing platform. If you need a validated parking ticket, we will give these out at check-in too.

BOOKS
At check-in, books will be handed out to those who haven't already collected them from Watchung Booksellers. If you have already collected your book, please bring it with you if you would like Tracy to sign it for you.

INSIDE THE VENUE
The front row is reserved for Festival sponsors and other guests. Please follow the usher’s instructions when finding a seat. 

BOOK SIGNING
After the event, Tracy and moderator Dionne will sign books. Please follow the instructions announced at the end of the talk.

Please let us know if you have any questions or require any accommodations to attend. 

We look forward to welcoming you and hearing from Tracy!

Best,
Marcia Marley

Festival Chair




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