U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith's Wade in the Water is her most recent collection and the first I've read. I think it makes an excellent introduction to her work and wouldn't be a bad place to start if you're new to contemporary poetry. She does not intimidate, nor does her language obfuscate. T...
This one is hard to review. Smith's story is not bad or uninteresting or poorly written, but it just didn't speak to me. While there were familiar elements in her story, whether to my own experience or other books I've already read, there was not much that made it really stand out.In the world of pe...
One of those books you desperately wish you'd written yourself...beautiful.
The only poem which I can say I honestly really loved and was moved by was "The Good Life" - it was simple but I enjoyed the combination of metaphors and images in it, although they weren't ones that were terribly original. They had a very honest quality to them though, and the genuineness of the po...
My first introduction to this volume was through a lovely short poem posted on Berfrois: http://www.berfrois.com/2013/09/the-good-life-tracy-k-smith/ I admired how succintly the contrast between workaday coffee and bread and payday roast chicken and wine captures the yearning for comfort and belon...
Not the flame, but what it promised,Surrender. To be quenched of danger.I torched toothpicks to watch themCurl around themselves like living things,Panicked and aglow. I would wake,Sheets wrinked and damp, and riseFrom that print of myself,From that sleep-slack dummy self.Make me light.No one miss...
Excellent memoir from an excellent poet. The combination of disagreeing with parents, growing up, and illness, was treated in an interesting and original way.
Smith explores some interesting science/astronomy related themes in her poems, and creates some very compelling ones. I'd suggest her memoir first ([b:Ordinary Light: A memoir|22889754|Ordinary Light A memoir|Tracy K. Smith|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1422216506s/22889754.jpg|42459909]), though. ...
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