Smith sat down with All Things Considered’s Melissa Block to talk about writing a poem in a hurry. She called the day she spent with NPR’s producers “delightful, and a little terrifying.”

But reflecting on the headlines isn’t exactly a new activity for Smith. In fact, she said she often finds that news events are “things I am thinking about and wrestling with and trying to understand better.” And for a poet, there’s no better way to do that than to write. —NPR.org » Newspoet: Tracy K. Smith Writes The Day In Verse.