U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith once referred to poems as “friendly,” and you can believe it when you read the poems in her Pulitzer-winning elegy to her NASA-engineer father and nod to David Bowie, Life on Mars. In one poem, Smith sees the universe as a “house party,” in another, as a “primal scream.” Her poems are vast and beautiful, fluttering freely from the physical to the metaphysical. Smith will discuss Mars and her latest collection Wade in the Water at this year’s Sensoria.

Price: Free.