that is the creed that comes through in talking with 45 year old tracy k. smithriter, teacher, spouse and mother of three, including 4-year-old twins-- and now taking on a very public role as the nation's poet laureate. >> this is a position that allows me to profess publicly all that i really hold true privately, that if we can listen actively enough, if we can put enough pressure on ourselves and our thought process, language can be a real tool of revelation. i love being able to do that with my students and my little seminars and i love the idea that maybe there's a way that this position allows me to do that with my fellow americans. >> brown: smith is author of three books of poetry, including the pulitzer-prize winning "life on mars," in part an elegy for her father, who served in the air force before leaving to work on the hubble telescope. in her 2015 memoir, titled "ordinary light," she writes of growing up in a tight-knit middle-class family in northern california, a coming-of-age tale exploring love and loss, race and faith-- themes that suffuse her po