Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times

by Tracy K. Smith

The Pulitzer Prize–winning poet reveals how poetry is a powerful tool of connection and understanding in a fractured world.

Drawing on deep passion and personal experience, former US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith demystifies the art form that has too often been mischaracterized as “inaccessible,” “irrelevant,” or “intimidating.” She argues that poetry is rooted in fundamentally human qualities innate to our capacities to love, dream, question, and engage across diverse cultures and backgrounds.

Lifting the veil on her own creative process, Smith shows us how reading and writing poetry allows us to confront life’s many uncertainties and losses, to build camaraderie with strangers, and to understand ourselves. She grounds readers in the technical elements of the craft and provides close readings of the works of contemporary poets such as Joy Harjo, Danez Smith, and Francisco Márquez, alongside classic poems by Dickinson, Keats, Millay, and others. By reimaging and reexamining the age-old art form, Fear Less is a warm invitation to find meaning, consolation, and hope through poetry.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Essays, Politics

192 pages, Hardcover

Published November 18, 2025

About the author

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 also the editor of an anthology, American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time, and the author of a memoir, Ordinary Light, which was 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.

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I mean is, I don’t always understand the poems I admire. Sometimes poems operate by a logic that eludes me, the way dreams often do. from Fear Less by Tracy K. Smith

“You don’t always have to understand it,” Tracy K. Smith assures us about poetry. Let the poem take you on a journey. It will lead you to notice something, feel something, understand something. A poem might save your life or open your eyes to startling new insights. Don’t be afraid of poetry.

Smith leads readers into understanding poetry that moves her, drawing from poems classic and contemporary. She tells us her reactions and insights to the poem and considers how the poem’s structure and words and images work to create her reaction. She discusses how poetry addresses significant personal and cultural issues.

Smith was six when she read Old Hogan’s Goat, which appeared in my earliest piano book lesson as Bill Grogan’s Goat. It is a humorous story of a goat who eats six red shirts and is tied to the railroad track for punishment, but coughing up the shirts flags down the train just in time. And yet out of this slight comedic lyric, Smith finds deeper meaning about “power, surrender, repentance,(…)reconciliation.”

It is stunning to read the depths Smith draws from the poems. And yet, in the end, I do love the way a poem cleaves my heart, a precious flame, mystical, even if I don’t understand it deeply.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this early review copy.

For several years, I read from a poetry book every day. And then, about two years ago, I lost interest. It was no longer fulfilling me, maybe too much bad poetry, maybe I just was not in the right mindset. When I saw Smith’s new book, I hoped she could open my eyes to the beauty and magic of poetry again, give me a new way to engage with poetry, and bring back the joy. And she tries really hard. Some of these essays, especially the first one, resonated strongly with me.

Tracy K Smith is a genius, and the gentle hero that we all need today. I felt so uplifted while reading this. In all the upheaval in the USA lately, I've often felt alone, like the entire country is moving against me and my small group of loved ones. But reading Smith's words, I felt so reassured to know I am not alone. She's there, too, guiding us, guiding all of us if we'll let her.

But a lot of the remaining essays just felt like homework I had to do, not something I wanted to read. They didn't help me find new ways to connect.

I'm not sure who her intended audience is for these essays. One must already have some familiarity and love for poetry already in order to feel drawn to a book like this. Perhaps it's intended as an introductory text for high school students. Perhaps she intended it as a plea to the general public to give poetry a chance, to say that it can speak to all of us if we are not afraid to listen.

Each essay analyzes specific poems as a way to discuss an aspect of poetry, and she quotes from a variety of poems (in part of or in entirety) to make her point. It feels like it would make a great high school text, but it didn't do much for me. Since I read an early review copy, there were some formatting issues that made some things difficult to read. In particular, there was no table of contents, so I made one for myself as I read. My e-copy has no page numbers, so I referenced the percentage instead:


A Poem Is a Tool for Careful Listening - 2%
Falling Awake: Poetry and the Work of the Unconscious - 10%
Any Small Thing Can Save You: On Grief and Accountability 29%
Who Are You?: On Strangers and Others - 47%
Feats of Consciousness: Poetry Is a Redeeming Act - 67%
Be Ye Not Afraid: A Brief Guide to What Poems Are and How They Do What They Do - 69%
1. What is a Poem? 69%
2. Who is Speaking? 70%
3. The Title 72%
4. Images 74%
5. Form 77%
6. A poem’s closure 81%
7. On Judgment 84%
Acknowledgements - 86%
Appendix of Poets - 87%
Notes - 97%



This is a difficult book for me to rate.
The opening essay: 5 stars
My personal reading experience of the entire collection, as a lay person: 3 stars
As a hypothetical school text: 5 stars

[Guadalupe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to Norton for providing me with an ARC of this release.

Though I am someone who felt he didn't need reminders about the power and strength of poetry, Smith's meditations on its possibilities truly affected me. At the same time, the book's message and intent may be inaccessible to an audience which could benefit from diving into poetry, because Smith is largely preaching to the choir here--I don't think many aside from those who already love poetry, or literature besides, will pick it up.

It's also unwieldy in idealism, quite optimistic in its scope or expectations. As we are mired in the death of media literacy, abetted by the powers that be which she refers to often within the book, pitting us against each other in endless competition, compelling people to engage in poetry and with others' stories and perspectives is a grand proposition.

The collection smacks of memoir at times as well, as Smith relates her time as US Poet Laureate. The focus of the work is further puzzling as a consequence.

I did enjoy and resonate with her conception of the poem and how to immerse or lose yourself and let go of your preconceptions as you read a poem, to renounce the expectation of "resolution" or even "truth", to simply experience the sensory language and feelings it summons.

If anything, it calls for action, which may spur people passionate about poetry to share their enthusiasm with others. It may be the opposite of polemic, much needed in these reactive times where everyone is ready with an opinion piece or general fierce criticism, rather than sitting down to understand others' perspectives and experiences.

[Kai · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really wasn't a fan of this.
Right off the bat the intended audience is so unclear that i only really know who the intended readers are because the author states directly that it is for both lovers of poetry as well as people new to poetry. You shouldn't have to tell me that. The book also fails to work well for either of these two groups. It fails to work well as a book for readers well versed in poetry by over explaining basic concepts and overall not doing anything very inventive or compelling, and it also fails to work well as a book for introductory readers by being so overly flowery and pretentious that it isolates itself within an air that only people very interested in poetry would enjoy. It ends up landing in a middle space that feels suitable for a book you would be required to read for a freshman college poetry course and nowhere else.
The content overall was fine. I wouldn't call it good or bad. It certainly has potential. I just wish it would commit to either a higher or lower level audience. The middle ground really tanks it for me.

[Keely · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Fear Less, Tracy K. Smith explores the power of poetry to connect us to ourselves and to each other. She starts by sharing her work as US Poet Laureate, reading and discussing poetry with disparate groups of people and repeatedly observing how a poem can tap into forgotten knowledge and experience and reveal common ground between people. From there, Smith goes on to offer a master class in close reading and thoughtful questioning of a poem. She places classics from Dickinson, Millay, and others alongside the work of modern poets, and slowly peers into the heart of each poem. Her process is meditative—an antidote to the distracted, half-skimming way that most of us read these days. Poetry lends itself to that kind of slowed-down approach and trains us to extend that to other experiences. Fear Less is a beautiful reminder of how human and how necessary that kind of slowing down is.

My thanks to Norton and NetGalley for providing me with a review copy of Fear Less.

[Stells · Rating 4 out of 5]

** Thank you to NetGalley and W. W. Norton & Company for providing this E-ARC in exchange for an honest review **

An insightful exploration of poetry as a craft, inviting the reader to reflect on and potentially recontextualise how they engage with a poem. Gripping, fascinating, and truly delightful to read; Fear Less blends a demystifying analysis of the technical aspects of poetry with a reminder of the inherently political nature of art itself.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself while reading this, even if I encountered many formatting errors while reading on Kindle. I hope that those will be fixed on the official version once released, and needless to say, I now look forward to reading Tracy K. Smith's poetry.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd like to preface this by saying that I enjoy Tracy Smith as a poet. This book, however, is one of poetry criticism. Smith explores a number of poems by contemporary poets, concentrating more on intent and imagery than on poetics per se. More focus on the implied message than on how the poets examined deliver that message. I'm not very expert in literary criticism, so I could not easily trace a through-line that outlined Smith's views. But I did enjoy some observations. The formatting of my electronic copy was also a bit disruptive sometimes, but a minor concern. If you would enjoy reading the views of a modern poet on some of their contemporaries, you might enjoy this book. I personally found it a bit opaque. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.25/5) I thought the first half of this was amazing; the second half was mid to me. A great pull to contextualize poetry. 💖 “It strikes me as essential to acknowledge the willful nature inherent in the art form, and to celebrate the ingenious disobedience of which every poem is capable. Isn’t it, after all, precisely the desire to be led past expected bounds of habit and convention—habit and convention being insufficient harbors for our most urgent and confounding feelings—that leads us to the threshold of a poem?”

[Wendy Wisner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Tracy K. Smith's poetry. There was a lot to admire in this book. I especially enjoyed the autobiographical content and when she talked about how her poetic voice emerged and which poems inspired her as a young writer. Some of the poetry analysis felt a little less interesting, though some of it was fabulous.

Thanks to NetGalley for giving me an advanced reader copy of this book.

[C. Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the beautiful relationship of poetry and its audience conveyed in this book. As a creative myself, this body of work has inspired me to let down unnecessary guards preventing me from exploring new ways of expression so that readers of my work can be inspired without limitation.
Honored to have received this advanced reader copy.

[deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely fascinating and enlightening dive into poetry: its forms, its power, its purpose, and so much more. Tracy K. Smith engages with and pores over words with such a sharp and loving eye, and I found myself looking at poetry in ways I had never been invited to before. Love this book. One of my favorites of the year and one I will be returning to!

[Page Inman]

If you want to understand poetry and maybe delve into writing some then this book will help. It will explain poetry’s effect and how it can help in times of peril.

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed Smith's guide into finding deeper meaning in the words we read and the words we miss.

[Elle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read if you love poetry!!! Another book that I can't wait to study. I know that I will revisit this book regularly.

[Anna Leahy · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone who reads or writes poetry or appreciates the role arts and literature play in our lives and our hope in humanity.