Vanderbilt Reading Series: Poetry & Our Spiritual Lives (New York Campus)

About

The Vanderbilt Reading Series will welcome Pádraig Ó Tuama and Tracy K. Smith for Poetry & Our Spiritual Lives: A Reading and Panel Discussion, in conjunction with Vanderbilt University–New York City. Through deep attention and thoughtful language, at its best, poetry makes room for revelations that transcend headlines of geopolitical conflicts and cultural battles. Poetry urges us to inhabit a more contemplative realm of existence, however mysterious, and to observe how we are miraculously convened on Earth. This landmark reading gathers prominent American writers whose essays and poetry instigate greater awareness of our spiritual journeys and the clarity of vision we seek.

Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet with interests in language, violence, power, and religion. He is the host of On Being’s Poetry Unbound and has published volumes of poetry, essays, a memoir and theology. Kitchen Hymns was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award. His two anthologies from the Poetry Unbound series have gathered widespread praise, with author Elif Shafak calling it “Mesmerising, magical, deeply moving…” In September 2026, his collection Love Between Men will be published, and he will take up the role as the Mellon Professor of Spirituality and Poetry at Yale Divinity School.

Former Poet Laureate of the United States, Tracy K. Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, memoirist, editor, translator and librettist. Smith is the author of six poetry collections: The Forest, forthcoming from Graywolf Press in March 2027; Such Color: New and Selected Poems, which won the 2022 New England Book Award; Wade in the Water, which was awarded the 2018 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award; Life on Mars, which won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize; Duende, winner of the 2006 James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets; and The Body’s Question, which received the 2003 Cave Canem Prize. Her memoir, Ordinary Light, was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in nonfiction. Her memoir-manifesto, To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul, was a Time magazine and Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times is a nonfiction celebration of poetry as a source of courage and emotional fortitude amidst the many upheavals of the 21st Century. Smith spearheaded American Conversations: Celebrating Poetry in Rural Communities with the Library of Congress, created the American Public Media podcast The Slowdown, and edited the anthology American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time.

Among Smith’s other honors are a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Harold Washington Literary Award, 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 the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University, and a Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute.