‘I will tell you the truth about this’ Poetry Reading

When:
February 11, 2021 @ 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
2021-02-11T19:30:00-05:00
2021-02-11T20:30:00-05:00
Where:
Online
Cost:
$15 suggested

On Thursday, February 11 at 7:30pm EST, the Folger’s O.B. Hardison Poetry Series presents poet Maurice Manning sharing his work alongside recent Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith for a virtual reading from President Lincoln’s Cottage in Washington D.C.

Tickets for this virtual event are currently on sale. The suggested ticket price is $15, with a minimum, pay-what-you-can price level at $5. Tickets can be purchased at the Folger Box Office at 202.544.7077 or by visiting www.folger.edu/poetry.

After the virtual tour of the Cottage, Manning and Smith will read from their work in a round-robin
fashion (a few poems each in response to the other poet). Manning’s latest collection Railsplitter is
told in the posthumous voice of President Lincoln. Smith’s most recent book, Wade in the
Water takes an unflinching look at the ravages of slavery, the lives of Black Civil War soldiers and
America’s history on race, gender, immigration, and more.

Tracy K. Smith is the author of Wade in the Water; Life on Mars, winner of the Pulitzer
Prize; Duende, winner of the James Laughlin Award; and The Body’s Question, winner of the Cave
Canem Poetry Prize. She is the editor of an anthology, American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time,
and the author of a memoir, Ordinary Light, a finalist for the National Book Award. From 2017 to
2019, Smith served as Poet Laureate of the United States. She teaches at Princeton University.
Maurice Manning’s first book, Lawrence Booth’s Book of Visions, was selected by W.S. Merwin for
the Yale Series of Younger Poets. Manning’s other collections include The Common Man, a finalist
for the Pulitzer Prize in 2011, and One Man’s Dark. His current book, Railsplitter, is his seventh
collection of poetry. A former Guggenheim fellow, Manning teaches at Transylvania University in
Lexington, Kentucky and for the MFA Writer’s Program at Warren Wilson College.

Single tickets and subscriptions to the 2020/21 season of Folger Poetry—through May 2021—are
currently on sale. Subscribers have virtual access to all 2020/21 readings and to the archive of those
readings.

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