A review by gmdudley4
Ordinary Light: A Memoir by Tracy K. Smith

3.0

Short review: Confession- this is my second time trying to read this book. The first time was right after it was published and I just could not get into it. I thought that I must have "been going through something" then I picked it up again once Smith was announced as poet laureate. Smith is an excellent writer, but this memoir did not move me in the same ways as her poetry. I understand this work as her trying to come to terms with the life and death of her mother to cancer, but that theme was lost in the book. I guess I thought I would be reading about a mother-daughter dynamic, but it was much like a autobiographical tale told through short-ish stories. I really wanted to like this book because Smith is such a goooooooood writer. Pick it up, maybe it will do something for you that it did not do for me.