Master Class Announcement
Poetry and Consciousness
with Tracy K. Smith
Himalayan Literature Festival & Writers Workshop 2026
Nagarkot, Kathmandu, Nepal
2 June 2026
2:00 PM – 4:00 PM
In this generative master class, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet and former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith invites participants to explore poetry as a practice of consciousness—a means of journeying beyond linear logic, personal narrative, and material evidence.
Drawing inspiration from visionary writers such as Lucille Clifton, Robert Hayden, D. H. Lawrence, and Thomas Merton, the session will examine how poetry engages the life of the spirit: opening dialogue with the higher self, imagining cosmic presence, and awakening the possibility of personal and collective transcendence.
Open to participants of all backgrounds and belief systems, this workshop will use the lyric imagination to cultivate creative authority, deepen awareness, and discover new ways of seeing in uncertain times.
About the Faculty
Tracy K. Smith is a Pulitzer Prize–winning poet, memoirist, translator, and librettist. She served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States (2017–2019) and is currently the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University.
Her acclaimed works include Life on Mars (winner of the Pulitzer Prize), Such Color: New and Selected Poems (recipient of the 2022 New England Book Award), and To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul. She is also the author of Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times, a forthcoming meditation on poetry as a response to contemporary division and alienation.
Smith has played a leading role in expanding poetry’s public reach through initiatives such as American Conversations with the Library of Congress and the widely celebrated podcast The Slowdown.
Online Participation
A limited number of virtual seats are available for those wishing to join remotely.
hlfwwk2026@gmail.com
https://hlf.whitelotusbookshop.com/
