Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy K. Smith has earned another prestigious honor: She’s been named the 22nd Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry of the United States, NPR reports. The Library of Congress “keeps to a modest minimum the specific official duties,” according to a statement announcing the news. The goal is to give each poet as much freedom as possible, but
“many recent poet laureates have sought to expand the audience for poetry,” NPR notes.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden emphasized how Smith’s work “brings history and memory to life” in a statement, and described how the poet “calls on the power of literature as well as science, religion, and pop culture.”

As ambitious as Smith’s poetry is, she seems to think there’s no “right” way to read or appreciate her work — or any other poet’s. “What do you hear? What do you feel? What does this remind you of? These are all real and valid reactions to a poem,” she told NPR.

“I think the responsibility really is to just help raise the awareness of poetry and its value in our culture,” Smith said of her new appointment. “To me that means talking to people — getting off the usual path of literary festivals and university reading series and talking to people who might not even yet be readers of poetry. “I would love to go to places where people might be struggling, where people might wonder if there are voices out there for them,” she added.

Smith has written three books of poetry, including the 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winning “Life on Mars.” And poetry isn’t the only medium she works in. She’s currently working on two operas, and published a memoir in 2015, “Ordinary Light.”

“I feel that as a person of color I’ve always been interested in the stories that are quiet and the stories that often get overlooked,” Smith explained. “I think that inevitably I’m aware of these margins and I’m curious about them because I know what it feels like to be [outside] of one.”

Smith believes poems “connect us more fully to our own inner lives and to the lives of others,” and as poet laureate she thinks “it will be very easy to say, ‘Let’s have a diversity of voices, perspectives, experiences, aesthetics that we draw from. And let’s listen.’”

“What excites me is that I’m an ambassador for poetry, which is something that I wholeheartedly believe in and that has been an anchor and a force of stability and consolation throughout my life,” Smith said. “I think that’s good news.”

You can watch Smith read one of her poems in the video below.