Life on Mars

Poems

By: Tracy K. Smith

Narrated by: Tracy K. Smith

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.

©2011 Tracy K. Smith (P)2017 HighBridge, a Division of Recorded Books

No stories to be told. But . . . Moments.

Smith paints pictures. Tiny pictures. Miniatures that capture moments, little jewels reflecting things she sees, sounds she hears, people she meets.

Like her images that leap off the page in Duende, there is no narrative in Life on Mars, just little gems she shares with us that tell us what’s in her mind.

It’s an interesting mind and I was grateful to be invited in to visit with her. Thank you.

Emotional & Cerebral

This collection moved me...Intellectually, Spiritually, Emotionally & Mentally. Such True-Life revelations. Moments to make you laugh & cry, but most importantly; you also had to think. The Writer did a great job reading her beautiful work.

Prescient, melancholy, thoughtful.

Smith, U.S. Poet Laureate from 2017-2019, addresses the death of her father, social isolation in the 21st century, space, technology, injustice, and David Bowie in this excellent collection of poems.

Instantly and Profoundly Moved

It will take me a long time to process this extraordinary work. I am also going to buy the book in hardcopy to see the words on page. Simply beautiful.

Simply stunning.

An emotional reckoning of us, here now, and the survival of our collective American dreams.