Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Poetry. Featuring Good Bones, which has made a difference to so many people around the globe--called "Official Poem of 2016" by Public Radio International. Maggie Smith writes out of the experience of motherhood, inspired by watching her own children read the world like a book they've just opened, knowing nothing of the characters or plot. These poems stare down darkness while cultivating and sustaining possibility and addressing a larger world.
Synopsis
"As if lost in the soft, bewitching world of fairy tale, Maggie Smith conceives and brings forth this metaphysical Baedeker, a guidebook for mother and child to lead each other into a hopeful present. Smith's poems affirm the virtues of humanity: compassion, empathy, and the ability to comfort one another when darkness falls. 'There is a light, ' she tells us, 'and the light is good.'" -- D. A. Powell
"Smith's voice is clear and unmistakable as she unravels the universe, pulls at a loose thread and lets the whole thing tumble around us, sometimes beautiful, sometimes achingly hard. Truthful, tender, and unafraid of the dark. . . ." --Ada Lim n
"It's Smith's dynamically precise and vivid images, and her uncanny ability to find just the right word or action to crack open our known experience, that make Good Bones an extraordinary book. (She) demonstrates what happens when an abundance of heart and intelligence meets the hands of a master craftsperson, reminding us again that the world, for a true poet, is blessedly inexhaustible." --Erin Belieu
Synopsis
Good Bones was named one of Entropy's "Best of 2017," received the 2018 IPPY Award in Poetry, Gold, and was listed in the Washington Post's "Best Poetry of 2017." Praised for its "dynamically precise and vivid images, and Smith's] uncanny ability to find just the right word or action to crack open our known experience," this book is much more than its title poem. This intimate poetry collection is meant for all of us, a way to explore the best and worst parts of our world. In 2016 the poem "Good Bones" went viral internationally; since then it has been translated into nearly a dozen languages and featured on the CBS primetime drama Madam Secretary.
Synopsis
Good Bones, the collection that took the internet by storm in 2017, is a collection of modern poetry that speaks to the world we live in. Maggie Smith contemplates the past and our future, life and death, childhood and motherhood. She writes out of the experience of motherhood, inspired by watching her own children read the world like a book they've just opened, knowing nothing of the characters or plot. Smith takes in the dark world around her with a critical eye, always searching for the hidden goodness: compassion, empathy, honesty. "There is a light," she tells us, "and the light is good." Smith skillfully reveals the layers of the world around us through lyric language and vivid imagery: "For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. / For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, / sunk in a lake." These poems stare down darkness while cultivating and sustaining possibility and addressing a larger world. We come away from this collection hopeful about making the world a better place, a place to share with future generations. As Smith tells us in Good Bones, "This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful."