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Declaration

By Tracy K. Smith
He has
 
              sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people
 
He has plundered our—
 
                                           ravaged our—
 
                                                                         destroyed the lives of our—
 
taking away our­—

                                  abolishing our most valuable—

and altering fundamentally the Forms of our—

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for
Redress in the most humble terms:
 
                                                                Our repeated
Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
 
We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration
and settlement here.
 
                                    —taken Captive
                                              
                                                                    on the high Seas
 
                                                                                                     to bear—
 
Tracy K. Smith, "Declaration" from Wade in the Water.  Copyright © 2018 by Tracy K. Smith.  Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press, www.graywolfpress.org.

Poet Bio

Image of Tracy K. Smith

Tracy K. Smith was born in Massachusetts and raised in northern California. She earned a BA from Harvard University and an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University. Her book, Life on Mars (2011), won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. In 2014 she was awarded the Academy of American Poets fellowship. She has also written a memoir, Ordinary Light (2015), which was a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction. In June 2017, Smith was named U.S. poet laureate. She has taught at Princeton University and Harvard University.

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