Between The Lines Virtual Book Club 2026

Tracy K. Smith’s latest essay collection, To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul, makes the case for optimism. Conjuring up histories of Black resilience—through national and familial archives, searingly personal anecdotes, and ancestral wisdom—the former Poet Laureate of the United States reminds us:

History is not something to run from. No. It has held us, birthed and nursed us. And if its wild heat is not content to recede, perhaps it makes sense to stoop down, gather it up in my own hands, and carry some piece of it—some wriggling kit or pup—forward.