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just_one_more_paige's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
Enter my like, twice-annual, foray into poetry. Still not a form I'm really comfortable with or feel particularly confident reading and understanding and reviewing. But, you know, personal growth and whatnot. I ran across Tracy K. Smith's name in a bookish article somewhere and took a peek at my library to see if we had any of her collections. This one, published in 2011, won the Pulitzer Prize, so I figured it was as solid a starting point as any for her work.
Let me just start by saying that I know I lean towards prize-winning poetry (Brown's The Tradition was a recent Pulizter winner I picked up, I read Rankin's Citizen recently as well, and I read Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings because I wanted to read something by Harjo and that was the only one my library had). Mainly this is because I actually am not sure how to judge "great" versus "less great" poetry, so I rely on other people to tell me. And I'm hoping that, with time, I can start to get a feel for it? So that brings me here, to Life on Mars.
If you are looking for a mix of sci-fi and poetry, this is it. Interestingly, I felt like it was unexpectedly exactly as the title indicates. I feel like, since it was poetry, I was really anticipating something more symbolic. But it is as advertised. It opens with a first section that is very much the “what are we, in the massive scheme of space and time?” vibe, with lots of oblique (and some less subtle) references to the cosmic and sci-fi in contemporary media (music and movies and literature). The does continue throughout the collection, but is most pronounced at the start. We then move into a section that is primarily in eulogy/remembrance of her father (who apparently worked on/with the Hubble telescope, so that explains, at least in part, the inspiration for this title and theme). And then the final two sections sort of explore the line between the earth-bound and the space-based, in form and possibility.
There is a fascinating super-imposing of earthly terrors/disasters/horrors (including, but not limited to: violence, environmental decay/extinction, war crimes, interpersonal violence, murder, death/grief, hate, anti-semitism/racism/prejudice and religious fervor leading to heinous acts, etc.) with the language of the extraterrestrial, to create a feeling of how unbelievable our reality can sometimes be. Specifically, the poem in in the third section that imagines the letters from the dead, at major landmarks/attractions, to their murderers is a great example of how Smith does this. The final section really brings this part home (literally and figuratively), with images and small moments that tether us to the reality of our lives on this planet.
I enjoyed many of the poems, was really into a few, and liked the combination of sci-fi and contemporary life a lot. The section on processing the grief of her father's death was emotional, but for me, my least favorite. Within the context of the rest of the poems and themes, it sort of felt like it didn't belong. And it jarred me out of the vibe of the rest of the collection. There were also, as always, a couple of poems that I think went completely over my head. But I pretty much figure every collection will have a couple of those, and I sort of just skate past them and on to the next, so they don't affect my overall reading experience too much.
If I had to sum up this collection in one line it would be: the human experience, juxtaposed over the mysteries of space and nature, and the reach of hope and imagination for us as a people, a planet. I had a very positive overall reading experience with this collection.
Favorite Overall Poems:
Museum of Obsolescence (put me in mind of like, a museum of the present from the future, a la Doctor Who)
The Universe: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (just a very cool poem, a calling to the sounds of daily life that maintain themselves in the background and tend to go unnoticed)
The Speed of Belief (part 6) (part grief for her father, part mourning of all things gone/extinct, part a hopeful imagining of the next life for all those beings)
Life on Mars #8 (rumination on the patience and ever-present, subtle strength of the earth, as planet and physical land)
Ransom (similar to the above, but for ocean; a nod to the power and constancy of water in the face of human's war upon it)
They May Love All That He Has Chosen / And Hate All That He Has Rejected (just a deeply emotionally affecting piece)
Favorite Lines:
“Just like the life / In which I'm forever a child looking out my window at the night sky / Thinking one day I'll touch the world with bare hands / Even if it burns.”
“Silence taunts: a dare. Everything that disappears / Disappears as if returning somewhere.”
"Night kneels at your feet like a gypsy glistening with jewels. / You raise your head and the great mouth yawns. You swallow the light."
“We’ve learned to back away from all we say / And, more or less, agree with what we should.”
“Moments sweep past. The grass bends / then learns again to stand.” (What a closing line!)
Content Warnings
Minor: Child abuse, Confinement, Racism, Death, Grief, and Religious bigotry
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