{"id":179,"date":"2025-08-17T19:01:04","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T19:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/?page_id=179"},"modified":"2025-08-24T13:48:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T13:48:12","slug":"tracy-k-smith-declaration-2018","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/texts\/tracy-k-smith-declaration-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Tracy K. Smith, \u201cDeclaration\u201d (2018)"},"content":{"rendered":"

INTRODUCTION<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Tracy K. Smith (Poets.org<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tracy K. Smith<\/a> (1972-\u00a0 ) was born in Massachusetts and grew up in California.\u00a0 She graduated from Harvard and received a graduate degree from Columbia.\u00a0 Smith began publishing her poetry in the early 21st century and has since received wide acclaim.\u00a0 She served as the nation’s poet laureate, appointed by the Librarian of Congress, during the period from 2017-19.\u00a0 Her poetry has won numerous awards.\u00a0 She is currently an English and African American Studies professor at Harvard.\u00a0 The poem, “Declaration,” is an example of erasure, which creates poetry by removing words from an existing text. The poem first appeared in the New Yorker <\/em> magazine in 2017<\/a> without italics and then in a published volume in 2018 with italics (as reproduced here).\u00a0 In this case of “found poetry,” Smith, as poet laureate, tackles the process of revisiting Thomas Jefferson’s prose in the Declaration of Independence.\u00a0 In particular, Smith focuses on the second section of the Declaration, not the famous preamble with its celebration of natural rights, but rather the “train of abuses” committed by the King (and Parliament) against the American colonists.\u00a0 Smith clearly finds resonance not only to the African American experience but also to modern-day abuses in the American system and uses erasure to help focus the reader on the evident hypocrisy that she sees then and now.<\/p>\n

\n

Declaration<\/h3>\n

He has\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

He has plundered our<\/em>\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0ravaged our<\/em>\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0destroyed the lives of our<\/em>\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

taking away our\u00ad<\/em>\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0abolishing our most valuable<\/em>\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

and altering fundamentally the Forms of our<\/em>\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Redress in the most humble terms:<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Our repeated\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

and settlement here.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u2014taken Captive<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0on the high Seas<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0to bear\u2014<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

INTRODUCTION   Tracy K. Smith (1972-\u00a0 ) was born in Massachusetts and grew up in California.\u00a0 She graduated from Harvard and received a graduate degree from Columbia.\u00a0 Smith began publishing her poetry in the early 21st century and has since received wide acclaim.\u00a0 She served […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":373,"featured_media":0,"parent":258,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-179","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/373"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/179\/revisions\/317"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}