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Every spring since 1999, the Thatcher Hoffman Smith Poetry series brings a nationally renowned, award-winning poet to our campus. The event features live readings of their work, book signings, and an open mic sessions for local poets to showcase their talents.

"Say you'd still want this: us alive, right here, feeling lucky."

from Ada Limón’s "The Conditional"

This spring, Thatcher Hoffman Smith Poetry Series welcomes U.S. Poet Laureate

Join us at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 1, for a poetry reading in the Kerr McGee Auditorium at Meinders School of Business, NW 26th & N. McKinley Ave, ÌÇÐÄvlogÊÓƵ City. Community members are also invited to come early and share their own poetry at the open mic, beginning at 6:30 p.m. The reading will be followed by a book signing. As always, our friends at will be on hand to sell copies of the poet's books. Admission is free but reserved tickets will be required. RSVP site coming soon!

Ada Limón is the author of six books of poetry, including The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her book Bright Dead Things was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Her most recent book of poetry, The Hurting Kind, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize. She is also the author of two children’s books: In Praise of Mystery, with illustrations by Peter Sís; and And, Too, The Fox, which will be released in 2025. In October of 2023 she was awarded a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship, and she was named a TIME magazine woman of the year in 2024. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship and wrote a poem that was engraved on launched to the second moon of Jupiter in October 2024. As the 24th Poet Laureate of The United States, her signature project is called You Are Here and focuses on how poetry can help connect us to the natural world. She will serve as Poet Laureate until the spring of 2025. 

"How to Triumph Like a Girl" by Ada Limón

I like the lady horses best,
how they make it all look easy,
like running 40 miles per hour
is as fun as taking a nap, or grass.
I like their lady horse swagger,
after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up!
But mainly, let’s be honest, I like
that they’re ladies. As if this big
dangerous animal is also a part of me,
that somewhere inside the delicate
skin of my body, there pumps
an 8-pound female horse heart,
giant with power, heavy with blood.
Don’t you want to believe it?
Don’t you want to lift my shirt and see
the huge beating genius machine
that thinks, no, it knows,
it’s going to come in first.

Watch Ada Limón read "High Water"