Life on Mars
Poems
Graywolf · Print & ebook · May 10, 2011
Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize * Poet Laureate of the United States * * A New York Times Notable Book of 2011 and New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * * A New Yorker, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year * New poetry by the award-winning poet Tracy K. Smith, whose "lyric brilliance and political impulses never falter" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) You lie there kicking like a baby, waiting for God himself To lift you past the rungs of your crib.
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- Who it’s for
- These poems set human oddities and loss against the vastness of space.
- Themes
- Space and human existence, Grief and fatherhood, Family violence
- Genres
- African American Poetry, American Poetry, Poetry About Death
Nearest books
Matched by what the books are about, then ordered by what their readers also loved. Most of these share its genres: African American Poetry and American Poetry.
Wade in the WaterTracy K. Smith67% match
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The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes onFranny Choi51% match
Golden AxRio Cortez57% match
There Are More Beautiful Things Than BeyonceMorgan Parker50% match
Magical NegroMorgan Parker53% matchAlso shares Poetry About Death
HomieDanez Smith53% matchAlso shares Poetry About Death
GuillotineEduardo C. Corral51% match
For younger readers: Bronx Masquerade, Ordinary Hazards, Honeybee
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Start with this bookAbout this book
Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize * Poet Laureate of the United States * * A New York Times Notable Book of 2011 and New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * * A New Yorker, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year * New poetry by the award-winning poet Tracy K. Smith, whose "lyric brilliance and political impulses never falter" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) You lie there kicking like a baby, waiting for God himself To lift you past the rungs of your crib.
Continue reading
What Would your life say if it could talk? —from "No Fly Zone" With allusions to David Bowie and interplanetary travel, Life on Mars imagines a soundtrack for the universe to accompany the discoveries, failures, and oddities of human existence. In these brilliant new poems, Tracy K. Smith envisions a sci-fi future sucked clean of any real dangers, contemplates the dark matter that keeps people both close and distant, and revisits the kitschy concepts like "love" and "illness" now relegated to the Museum of Obsolescence. These poems reveal the realities of life lived here, on the ground, where a daughter is imprisoned in the basement by her own father, where celebrities and pop stars walk among us, and where the poet herself loses her father, one of the engineers who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope. With this remarkable third collection, Smith establishes herself among the best poets of her generation.
Earth and Orbit
These poems set human oddities and loss against the vastness of space.
Come here for
- Cosmic scale with feet firmly on the ground
- A universe soundtracked by David Bowie
Expect
- Science-fiction imaginings beside human realities
- Reflections on distance, illness, and loss
Where it sits
| Poetry About Death | 67% |
|---|---|
| American Poetry | 57% |
| African American Poetry | 44% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- African American Poetry
- Women Poets
- Authors
- Tracy K. Smith
- Publisher
- Graywolf
- Published
- May 10, 2011
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Space and human existence · Grief and fatherhood · Family violence
- Reading lane
- African American Poetry