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Goldenrod: Poems
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Poetry (2021)From the award-winning poet and bestselling author of Keep Moving and Good Bones, a stunning poetry collection that celebrates the beauty and messiness of life.
With her breakout bestseller Keep Moving, Maggie Smith captured the nation with her “meditations on kindness and hope” (NPR). Now, with Goldenrod, the award-winning poet returns with a powerful collection of poems that look at parenthood, solitude, love, and memory. Pulling objects from everyday life—a hallway mirror, a rock found in her son’s pocket, a field of goldenrods at the side of the road—she reveals the magic of the present moment. Only Maggie Smith could turn an autocorrect mistake into a line of poetry, musing that her phone “doesn’t observe / the high holidays, autocorrecting / shana tova to shaman tobacco, / Rosh Hashanah to rose has hands.”
With her breakout bestseller Keep Moving, Maggie Smith captured the nation with her “meditations on kindness and hope” (NPR). Now, with Goldenrod, the award-winning poet returns with a powerful collection of poems that look at parenthood, solitude, love, and memory. Pulling objects from everyday life—a hallway mirror, a rock found in her son’s pocket, a field of goldenrods at the side of the road—she reveals the magic of the present moment. Only Maggie Smith could turn an autocorrect mistake into a line of poetry, musing that her phone “doesn’t observe / the high holidays, autocorrecting / shana tova to shaman tobacco, / Rosh Hashanah to rose has hands.”
128 pages, Hardcover
First published July 27, 2021
About the author
Maggie Smith
16 books1,681 followersMaggie Smith is the author of the national bestseller Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change (One Signal/Simon & Schuster 2020); Good Bones (Tupelo Press, 2017); The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison (Tupelo Press 2015), winner of the Dorset Prize, selected by Kimiko Hahn; and Lamp of the Body (Red Hen Press 2005), winner of the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award; and three prizewinning chapbooks.
Smith's poems and essays have appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, Poetry, Image, The Best American Poetry, The Paris Review, AGNI, Guernica, Brevity, the Washington Post, The Gettysburg Review, Ploughshares, and many other journals and anthologies. In 2016 her poem “Good Bones” went viral internationally and has been translated into nearly a dozen languages. In April 2017 the poem was featured on the CBS primetime drama Madam Secretary.
A 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, Maggie Smith works as freelance writer and editor. She is an Editor at Large at the Kenyon Review and is also on the faculty of Spalding University's low-residency MFA program.
Smith's poems and essays have appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, Poetry, Image, The Best American Poetry, The Paris Review, AGNI, Guernica, Brevity, the Washington Post, The Gettysburg Review, Ploughshares, and many other journals and anthologies. In 2016 her poem “Good Bones” went viral internationally and has been translated into nearly a dozen languages. In April 2017 the poem was featured on the CBS primetime drama Madam Secretary.
A 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, Maggie Smith works as freelance writer and editor. She is an Editor at Large at the Kenyon Review and is also on the faculty of Spalding University's low-residency MFA program.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 640 reviews
June 8, 2021
A solid collection. There is a real subtlety in many of the poems that elevated the work.
August 20, 2021
‘What is home,’ Maggie Smith writes, ‘but a passage I’m writing & underlining every time I read it.’ The proximity of home to poetry is deeply felt, particularly as it is so easy to find yourself at home within the emotions blossoming from each page. Goldenrod, Smith’s new collection following her viral success of Good Bones, is a dazzling love letter to a damaged world that sweetly illuminates the notion that we can find beauty even in darkness. She looks at the way poetry can grow out of anything, with moving poems about growth after divorce or, the way an autocorrect change can uncover poetry in its alterations, even teasing with a title like ‘Not Everything Is a Poem’ where she finds she sees poetry everywhere in her children, such as the collection of items pulled from her son’s pockets forming a list poem tenderly capturing his essence. This is a book that will break your heart, make you stare into the depravity of the violence at the hands of the State against others, examine hardships and heartaches, but then piece you back together stronger, wiser and more full of love than ever before.
This collection is so endlessly quotable, making it perfect to flip through when in need of inspiration. How can you not fall in love with a passage such as this:
There is something for everyone in here and this collection feels like an embrace of your entire being, listening to and sharing your fears but making you feel safe all the while. It feels very timely, with many poems criticizing the former failed president and references to the current pandemic that reminds everyone that this world is a lot right now. ‘Why don’t we leave / the flags at half-staff / & save ourselves / the trouble?’ she asks (the choice of having ‘& save ourselves’ alone on the line is brilliant and ominous) and while these poems don’t always have answers to the big questions, it shows that admitting you don’t know is okay and that hopefully we can all find a way together. ‘I tell myself it will do.’
‘We say that’s not how
The world works as if the world works.’
Smith stares the state of the US in the face and loudly calls out its atrocities in several poems. The evils of family separations and the internment camps that have plagued multiple presidencies particularly are targeted in several poems:
‘America, you’ve caged
Even the babies. They cry mostly in Spanish…
America, we have taken children
From their mothers. We have separated
Words from their meanings.’
In a poem that begins with a racist remark from a politician insulting other races as ‘animals’ she asks ‘do we know anymore what it is to be human? / I’ve stopped knowing what it is to be human.’ She finds she understands the instincts of animals and kinship with nature and in mocking the hateful words of others reminds us of the importance to care for nature as well as each other. The poems that address our bond with nature are certainly beautiful and meaningful enough to carry the torch in the absence of beloved poet Mary Oliver.
‘I was hoping the world would earn you.’
Simply put, this book is so goddamn beautiful you'll want to cry like looking at a newborn baby deer taking it's first steps. It is a collection full of wonder, wildness and sadness. It will hit you on almost every emotional string strung in your heart and you will be better for it.
4.5/5
‘I pocket my left hand
And tell myself a story about my life,
A story I call “Talisman,” a story
That might end well if I tell it right.’
This collection is so endlessly quotable, making it perfect to flip through when in need of inspiration. How can you not fall in love with a passage such as this:
‘I've talked so much about loving the world---
is this how it's done? I am offering
the only thing I have. I am holding out
my hand, feeding myself to the hungry future.’
There is something for everyone in here and this collection feels like an embrace of your entire being, listening to and sharing your fears but making you feel safe all the while. It feels very timely, with many poems criticizing the former failed president and references to the current pandemic that reminds everyone that this world is a lot right now. ‘Why don’t we leave / the flags at half-staff / & save ourselves / the trouble?’ she asks (the choice of having ‘& save ourselves’ alone on the line is brilliant and ominous) and while these poems don’t always have answers to the big questions, it shows that admitting you don’t know is okay and that hopefully we can all find a way together. ‘I tell myself it will do.’
‘We say that’s not how
The world works as if the world works.’
Smith stares the state of the US in the face and loudly calls out its atrocities in several poems. The evils of family separations and the internment camps that have plagued multiple presidencies particularly are targeted in several poems:
‘America, you’ve caged
Even the babies. They cry mostly in Spanish…
America, we have taken children
From their mothers. We have separated
Words from their meanings.’
In a poem that begins with a racist remark from a politician insulting other races as ‘animals’ she asks ‘do we know anymore what it is to be human? / I’ve stopped knowing what it is to be human.’ She finds she understands the instincts of animals and kinship with nature and in mocking the hateful words of others reminds us of the importance to care for nature as well as each other. The poems that address our bond with nature are certainly beautiful and meaningful enough to carry the torch in the absence of beloved poet Mary Oliver.
‘I was hoping the world would earn you.’
Simply put, this book is so goddamn beautiful you'll want to cry like looking at a newborn baby deer taking it's first steps. It is a collection full of wonder, wildness and sadness. It will hit you on almost every emotional string strung in your heart and you will be better for it.
4.5/5
‘I pocket my left hand
And tell myself a story about my life,
A story I call “Talisman,” a story
That might end well if I tell it right.’
August 24, 2021
Not quite up to her earlier book Good Bones, but this collection shows some density in its own right.
As you'd expect from Smith, you'll get some nature poems and some Mom poems, chiefly. Add to the mix in this outing, some political poems making statements about children especially -- she chooses the incidents of children being taken from their parents down on the border and the unforgivable looking the other way on Congress' part after Sandy Hook.
Despite that heavy material, the poems themselves are light on the eyes -- mostly short, both in duration and in words-per-line. For example, from wildness:
Lacrimae
Green dashes for grassland, brown dots
for desert, solid blue for water—
the children’s atlas is all simulacra,
from the Latin for likeness, which always
reminds me of lacrimae, Latin for tears.
That’s the rickety bridge my brain makes
over the river, or the kinked blue line
that stands for it. What a landscape
in the symbolic distance: dark green
lollipops for deciduous forest,
a cluster of black carats for mountains.
Once, doing dishes, I overheard
my children bickering about metaphysics
in the next room. The three-year-old
said, Everything is true, and his older
sister countered, Do you mean real?
When I think likeness, I think
tears—blue always for water, blue
running through and under everything.
As you'd expect from Smith, you'll get some nature poems and some Mom poems, chiefly. Add to the mix in this outing, some political poems making statements about children especially -- she chooses the incidents of children being taken from their parents down on the border and the unforgivable looking the other way on Congress' part after Sandy Hook.
Despite that heavy material, the poems themselves are light on the eyes -- mostly short, both in duration and in words-per-line. For example, from wildness:
Lacrimae
Green dashes for grassland, brown dots
for desert, solid blue for water—
the children’s atlas is all simulacra,
from the Latin for likeness, which always
reminds me of lacrimae, Latin for tears.
That’s the rickety bridge my brain makes
over the river, or the kinked blue line
that stands for it. What a landscape
in the symbolic distance: dark green
lollipops for deciduous forest,
a cluster of black carats for mountains.
Once, doing dishes, I overheard
my children bickering about metaphysics
in the next room. The three-year-old
said, Everything is true, and his older
sister countered, Do you mean real?
When I think likeness, I think
tears—blue always for water, blue
running through and under everything.
April 19, 2022
"What is home but a book we write,
then read again & again, each time dog-earing different pages."
I absolutely loved this collection of little poems!
"How do we live with trust..
In a world that will continue to betray us?"
then read again & again, each time dog-earing different pages."
I absolutely loved this collection of little poems!
"How do we live with trust..
In a world that will continue to betray us?"
September 3, 2021
i think it should be illegal to mention a "retweet" in a book
May 12, 2021
This was my introduction to Smith's poetry and it overall was, personally, not for me. I enjoyed a few of the poems but found many felt unfinished of half thought through. I see that many enjoy Smith's earlier work and I would be interested in trying it in the future.
Thank you to the publisher for the e-ARC for review.
Thank you to the publisher for the e-ARC for review.
March 5, 2023
smith’s particular brand of gen x white feminism + liberalism is a detriment to this book. when i say that the poetry overtly reflects the writer’s personal political views, which are very obviously lacking intersectionality and tend towards the performative brand of “leftism” that liberals of smith’s generation tend to prefer, what i’m saying is that the writer’s lack of understanding when it comes to social climate and intersectionality is intertwined throughout every poem and hard to ignore— and i don’t think we should.
smith writes about her own experiences during the 2016 US presidential election, her own beliefs, and even takes a stab at writing about the crisis at the US-Mexico border— all while failing to relate to a modern audience of anyone who isn’t over the age of 40.
smith writes poetry for 40+ year old white people. every poet, every writer, ever artist has an audience, yes, and i am most certainly not a member of smith’s audience, but that doesn’t mean i can’t critique her poetry— most of which is about her own political opinions and experiences as a white, liberal woman living in the midwest.
smith lacks an intersectional understanding, and her poetry reflects this immensely.
white, middle aged women are entitled to their opinions and people from other backgrounds are entitled to their critiques of said opinions.
original review: i really loved some of the poems and thought they were beautiful, but middle aged white women writing about politics and social climate is not my thing. however, the way that smith portrayed the horror of what’s going on at the us-mexico border in the poem ‘animals’ was well-done.
i think what really made this book meh for me was how it didn’t really have a common theme. a lot of the poems used nature motifs, but very few of them united. the titular poem, ‘goldenrod,’ was nothing like the rest of the poems in the collection.
i’ve read a lot better.
my favorite poem from the collection is ‘written deer.’
smith writes about her own experiences during the 2016 US presidential election, her own beliefs, and even takes a stab at writing about the crisis at the US-Mexico border— all while failing to relate to a modern audience of anyone who isn’t over the age of 40.
smith writes poetry for 40+ year old white people. every poet, every writer, ever artist has an audience, yes, and i am most certainly not a member of smith’s audience, but that doesn’t mean i can’t critique her poetry— most of which is about her own political opinions and experiences as a white, liberal woman living in the midwest.
smith lacks an intersectional understanding, and her poetry reflects this immensely.
white, middle aged women are entitled to their opinions and people from other backgrounds are entitled to their critiques of said opinions.
original review: i really loved some of the poems and thought they were beautiful, but middle aged white women writing about politics and social climate is not my thing. however, the way that smith portrayed the horror of what’s going on at the us-mexico border in the poem ‘animals’ was well-done.
i think what really made this book meh for me was how it didn’t really have a common theme. a lot of the poems used nature motifs, but very few of them united. the titular poem, ‘goldenrod,’ was nothing like the rest of the poems in the collection.
i’ve read a lot better.
my favorite poem from the collection is ‘written deer.’
February 10, 2022
I'm not a big reader of poetry, something I would like to change. When I saw this available on my book app I decided to give it a try and I was glad I did. It was an unexpected intriguing read of poetry and I might try to find something else by Maggie Smith sooner rather than later
July 30, 2023
I don't think this collection was for me. It's more about motherhood and kids. Overall it is a beautiful collection of poems I just dont resonate with it.
June 16, 2021
While I am a fan of poetry, so often I do not feel a personal connection, rather I appreciate the thoughtful reflections and clever wordplay. Maggie Smith's collection Good Bones is probably the first book of poems that I felt connected to; as if the words were inscribed on my own heart and I was just discovering them.
I was thrilled to be offered an advance copy of the collection Goldenrod. While it pales in comparison to Good Bones for me personally, I still appreciated the quiet musings on life: parenthood, nature, divorce, politics - it's all here, line by line, subtle but intense.
A few lines that knocked me out:
"What is home but a book we write, then
read again & again, each time dog-earing
different pages."
*
"I've talked so much about loving the world---
is this how it's done? I am offering
the only thing I have. I am holding out
my hand, feeding myself to the hungry future."
Thanks to Atria for providing me with an ARC. Goldenrod: Poems is scheduled for release on July 27, 2021.
For more reviews, visit www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com
I was thrilled to be offered an advance copy of the collection Goldenrod. While it pales in comparison to Good Bones for me personally, I still appreciated the quiet musings on life: parenthood, nature, divorce, politics - it's all here, line by line, subtle but intense.
A few lines that knocked me out:
"What is home but a book we write, then
read again & again, each time dog-earing
different pages."
*
"I've talked so much about loving the world---
is this how it's done? I am offering
the only thing I have. I am holding out
my hand, feeding myself to the hungry future."
Thanks to Atria for providing me with an ARC. Goldenrod: Poems is scheduled for release on July 27, 2021.
For more reviews, visit www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com
September 10, 2021
"I feel
about birth the way I feel
about death: it should not happen
in a room like this, or any room.
I want the smell of soil or salt air,
dark pines, fire and hot stones.
Something elemental.
You should look up and see
not ceiling, at least not
first or last on this earth."
4.5 ✨
Deeply moving and personal, Maggie Smith's poetry collection Goldenrod is a must-read.
In Goldenrod, Maggie Smith explores the world around her and reflects on her personal experiences in a raw and captivating way, covering in her poems topics like motherhood, divorce, politics, immigration, loneliness, nature, and loss.
Here are some of my favorites poems (even though the list can go on and on): Animals, In the Grand Scheme of Things, Written Deer, Threshold, For My Next Trick, December 18, 2008, Ohio Cento, Half Staff, Wild, First Thaw, and A Room Like This.
about birth the way I feel
about death: it should not happen
in a room like this, or any room.
I want the smell of soil or salt air,
dark pines, fire and hot stones.
Something elemental.
You should look up and see
not ceiling, at least not
first or last on this earth."
4.5 ✨
Deeply moving and personal, Maggie Smith's poetry collection Goldenrod is a must-read.
In Goldenrod, Maggie Smith explores the world around her and reflects on her personal experiences in a raw and captivating way, covering in her poems topics like motherhood, divorce, politics, immigration, loneliness, nature, and loss.
"Do we know anymore what it is to be
human?
I've stopped knowing what it is to be
human."
Here are some of my favorites poems (even though the list can go on and on): Animals, In the Grand Scheme of Things, Written Deer, Threshold, For My Next Trick, December 18, 2008, Ohio Cento, Half Staff, Wild, First Thaw, and A Room Like This.
October 27, 2022
Meh….. and maybe that’s mean to say about a poetry collection but I did not find these poems to be particularly affecting. There are a few exceptions, but in general I found it to be rather bland and routine.
Read
March 3, 2023These poems were absolutely beautiful. I dogeared almost every single one. Smith has a way with words that reminds me of a cross between Mary Oliver and Kate Baer. If you’re a fan of either I highly recommend this collection. (And if you haven’t read her poem called Good Bones, look it up and read it now. I’ll wait.)
Thank you to Atria for providing me with a free review copy. All opinions are my own.
Thank you to Atria for providing me with a free review copy. All opinions are my own.
January 5, 2022
favorites: goldenrod, slipper, small shoes (baby shoes found dead in a ditch), wife for scale
additional thoughts: maggie smith is not the most lyrical poet, but skilled at pulling a lovely idea or image out of simple words. enjoyable in a similar way to mary oliver, if not as poignant. also made me realize having someone wrote poetry about our divorce is my nightmare. and it is definitely a limitation of my own, but I have trouble connecting with anything written in and about this moment that isn’t fueled by rage. I don’t really want to think about hope and forgiveness right now! despite all of that, goldenrod was worth reading for me and had many lovely moments.
additional thoughts: maggie smith is not the most lyrical poet, but skilled at pulling a lovely idea or image out of simple words. enjoyable in a similar way to mary oliver, if not as poignant. also made me realize having someone wrote poetry about our divorce is my nightmare. and it is definitely a limitation of my own, but I have trouble connecting with anything written in and about this moment that isn’t fueled by rage. I don’t really want to think about hope and forgiveness right now! despite all of that, goldenrod was worth reading for me and had many lovely moments.
May 21, 2024
Easy lil morning read of poems. Nothing earth shattering. Some I snapped pics of to remind me and look back on later and some I skimmed on through. It was more cynical than I thought it would be but such is life. Notes on divorce, children, policies, life etc
POTB:
Animals
The president called undocumented immigrants animals, and in the nature documentary I watched this morning with my kids, after our Saturday pancakes, the white fairy tern doesn't build a nest but lays her single speckled egg in the crook of a branch or a tree knot. It looks precarious there because it is. And while she's away, because even mothers must eat, another bird swoops in and pecks it, sips some of what now won't become. The tern returns and knows something isn't right--the egg crumpled, the red slick and saplike running down the tree-but her instinct is so strong, she sits. Just sits on the broken egg. I have been this bird.
We have been animals all our lives, with our spines and warm blood, our milky tits and fine layers of fur. Our live births, too, if we're lucky. But what animal wrenches a screaming baby from his mother?
Do we know anymore what it is to be human?
I've stopped knowing what it is to be human.
POTB:
Animals
The president called undocumented immigrants animals, and in the nature documentary I watched this morning with my kids, after our Saturday pancakes, the white fairy tern doesn't build a nest but lays her single speckled egg in the crook of a branch or a tree knot. It looks precarious there because it is. And while she's away, because even mothers must eat, another bird swoops in and pecks it, sips some of what now won't become. The tern returns and knows something isn't right--the egg crumpled, the red slick and saplike running down the tree-but her instinct is so strong, she sits. Just sits on the broken egg. I have been this bird.
We have been animals all our lives, with our spines and warm blood, our milky tits and fine layers of fur. Our live births, too, if we're lucky. But what animal wrenches a screaming baby from his mother?
Do we know anymore what it is to be human?
I've stopped knowing what it is to be human.
April 26, 2024
I am officially on the Maggie Smith Train. These were immaculate.
Read
January 3, 2022The perfect way to start the new year.
February 26, 2022
A nice, accessible and nuanced collection. I don’t think any of the poems will really stick with me long term, but I enjoyed them regardless.
December 26, 2022
I read this collection months ago, but didn't review it at the time. In trying to remind myself of my favorite poems, I ended up rereading the whole thing. The subjects of the poems range from nature, divorce, motherhood, politics (particularly gun violence and families separated at the border). Smith's poetry is very accessible but also affecting. A few of my favorite poems and lines:
From "The Hum": "what question/does it keep not asking/and not asking, never changing/its pitch. How do I answer".
From "In the Grand Scheme of Things": "We say in the grand scheme of things/as if there were one. We say that's not how/the world works as if the world works."
From "Written Deer": "What is home but a book we write, then/read again & again, each time dog-earing/different pages" and then later "What is home but a passage/I'm writing & underlining every time I read it."
From "if I could set this to music" : "If I could come up/with a chorus, a bridge,/a harmony & a little slide guitar/rising like a question/you didn't know you needed/answered, I think you would/hear me."
From "During Lockdown, I Let the Dog Sleep in My Bed Again" : "I walk alone in the snow,/squinting up into the big, wet flakes,/letting them bathe my face. I tell myself/it is a kind of touch. I tell myself it will do."
From "Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Bridge" : "Until we find the right chord,/we can busy ourselves with the lyrics,/rhyming not words/but the ideas folded & stacked/inside them." and then "While the right chord searches the air,/we can slant rhyme/what we know now with what/we thought before. We must be coming/to the chorus now."
Other poems I really liked: "The Hum," "Poem Beginning with a Retweet," "Inventive Spelling," "December 18, 2008," "Prove," "Half-Staff," "Not Everything is a Poem," and "Invisible Architecture."
I have an advanced copy of Smith's memoir that I definitely want to get to soon, as well as more of her poetry.
From "The Hum": "what question/does it keep not asking/and not asking, never changing/its pitch. How do I answer".
From "In the Grand Scheme of Things": "We say in the grand scheme of things/as if there were one. We say that's not how/the world works as if the world works."
From "Written Deer": "What is home but a book we write, then/read again & again, each time dog-earing/different pages" and then later "What is home but a passage/I'm writing & underlining every time I read it."
From "if I could set this to music" : "If I could come up/with a chorus, a bridge,/a harmony & a little slide guitar/rising like a question/you didn't know you needed/answered, I think you would/hear me."
From "During Lockdown, I Let the Dog Sleep in My Bed Again" : "I walk alone in the snow,/squinting up into the big, wet flakes,/letting them bathe my face. I tell myself/it is a kind of touch. I tell myself it will do."
From "Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Bridge" : "Until we find the right chord,/we can busy ourselves with the lyrics,/rhyming not words/but the ideas folded & stacked/inside them." and then "While the right chord searches the air,/we can slant rhyme/what we know now with what/we thought before. We must be coming/to the chorus now."
Other poems I really liked: "The Hum," "Poem Beginning with a Retweet," "Inventive Spelling," "December 18, 2008," "Prove," "Half-Staff," "Not Everything is a Poem," and "Invisible Architecture."
I have an advanced copy of Smith's memoir that I definitely want to get to soon, as well as more of her poetry.
August 26, 2023
This wasn’t for me.
Some of the poems are incredibly powerful. Especially those touching topics of problematic political problems in the US.
„Why don’t we leave
the flags at half-staff
& save ourselves
the trouble?“
Overall Smith expresses her feelings and political opinions. And she does that well. Mostly.
The whole collection feels kind of dark and hopeless. But that didn’t bother me really.
„We say that’s not how The world works as if the world works.“
It’s just that most out of this collections didn’t speak to me. Like those about motherhood.
I just didn’t get the connection I’m looking for when reading poetry.
Some of the poems are incredibly powerful. Especially those touching topics of problematic political problems in the US.
„Why don’t we leave
the flags at half-staff
& save ourselves
the trouble?“
Overall Smith expresses her feelings and political opinions. And she does that well. Mostly.
The whole collection feels kind of dark and hopeless. But that didn’t bother me really.
„We say that’s not how The world works as if the world works.“
It’s just that most out of this collections didn’t speak to me. Like those about motherhood.
I just didn’t get the connection I’m looking for when reading poetry.
December 7, 2023
This fucking book made me love Bradford pear trees- a feat I never thought possible. For years, I have passed these ecological and moral offenders, demon Frankensteins of botanical proportions, on the street of every city I’ve ever lived in and flipped each one off with the middle finger on my right hand. Now I will look at them and see myself growing up. I will see home.
Read
July 18, 2023I think I was expecting to get more out of this than I did, but I did find one poem that really spoke to me so that means it was not a waste of my time.
August 4, 2022
read for my alphabet challenge
Autobiography of a Traitor and a Half-Savage by Alix E. Harrow
Book of Night by Holly Black
Comfort Me with Apples by Catherynne M. Valente
Demon in the Wood by Leigh Bardugo
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg
Goldenrod: Poems by Maggie Smith
(still haven't found a book for 'e', so feel free to comment with your suggestions!)
Autobiography of a Traitor and a Half-Savage by Alix E. Harrow
Book of Night by Holly Black
Comfort Me with Apples by Catherynne M. Valente
Demon in the Wood by Leigh Bardugo
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg
Goldenrod: Poems by Maggie Smith
(still haven't found a book for 'e', so feel free to comment with your suggestions!)
May 4, 2023
Goldenrod by Maggie Smith is a collection of poetry that delves into love, family, separation, nature, memory, daily life and humanity.
My favorite poems from each part:
Part 1: In the Grand Scheme of Things, Poem Beginning With a Retweet, Rose Has Hands
Part 2: Half Staff, Not everything is a poem, After the Divorce I Think of Something My Daughter Said About Mars
Part 3: Wife for Scale, Bride, Talisman
My favorite poems from each part:
Part 1: In the Grand Scheme of Things, Poem Beginning With a Retweet, Rose Has Hands
Part 2: Half Staff, Not everything is a poem, After the Divorce I Think of Something My Daughter Said About Mars
Part 3: Wife for Scale, Bride, Talisman
September 1, 2023
i’ve never read so many poems that are so deeply intertwined with being a mother & motherly anxieties & post-divorce feelings so it was rlly cool to get to read that (new to me) perspective from a great collection
October 19, 2021
A lovely collection. I must read more of M. Smith!
I had to go back and LISTEN to the author read this because it wouldn’t leave my mind. Like much poetry, rereading has improved it in my mind. Definitely 5* now.
And because I think I’m Going to order this to keep, here’s the long list of ones that really touched me: golden rod, in the grand scheme of things, poem beginning with a retweet, starlings, (Rose) has hands, if I could set this to music, talk of horses, inventive spelling, December 18, 2008, half staff, interrogators of orchids, at the end of my marriage, I think of something my daughter said about trees, not everything is a poem, poem beginning with a line from Basho, junk trees, A room like this what else, Porthole, during lockdown I let the dog sleep in my bed again, wife for scale, bride, talisman.
Yeah, I better buy this one. That’s most of the book.
I had to go back and LISTEN to the author read this because it wouldn’t leave my mind. Like much poetry, rereading has improved it in my mind. Definitely 5* now.
And because I think I’m Going to order this to keep, here’s the long list of ones that really touched me: golden rod, in the grand scheme of things, poem beginning with a retweet, starlings, (Rose) has hands, if I could set this to music, talk of horses, inventive spelling, December 18, 2008, half staff, interrogators of orchids, at the end of my marriage, I think of something my daughter said about trees, not everything is a poem, poem beginning with a line from Basho, junk trees, A room like this what else, Porthole, during lockdown I let the dog sleep in my bed again, wife for scale, bride, talisman.
Yeah, I better buy this one. That’s most of the book.
July 30, 2024
overall I really liked this collection but there was a gap, I think, between the hits and the misses. there’s a recurring theme about the detainment of children on the southern border that falls a bit flat, kind of leaning into the way white people write about tragedies like, “how could this happen? I feel so bad about this happening” when I feel there are vastly more important things to say on the topic. the poems about loneliness / motherhood really hit tho
January 5, 2023
4/5 stars
"My house is somewhere here,
and I've scribbled myself inside it.
What is home but a book we write and read again and again?
Each time dog-earing different pages."
"My house is somewhere here,
and I've scribbled myself inside it.
What is home but a book we write and read again and again?
Each time dog-earing different pages."
September 10, 2021
What Else
The smallest urn I’ve seen was the size
of my fist. The smallest coffin held
a two-year-old girl and her love-worn
Winnie-the-Pooh. I looked, kept looking,
because how not to? I’ve forgotten
how to lower my shoulders, how to draw
clean, unbroken breaths from the deep
well of my body, how to unclench
my jaw or else keep cracking my teeth
and tonguing the grit. The smallest
graves I’d see with my eyes closed
but I don’t close them. I’ve forgotten how.
Sleep was a dress I wore threadbare
as a child but grew out of. If there is
a God, is there such a thing
as holy regret for what He’s made?
What He’s—laissez-faire—allowed us
to break? As if He’s turned His head,
watching anything but the world. What else
is there to watch, I want to ask.
The smallest urn I’ve seen was the size
of my fist. The smallest coffin held
a two-year-old girl and her love-worn
Winnie-the-Pooh. I looked, kept looking,
because how not to? I’ve forgotten
how to lower my shoulders, how to draw
clean, unbroken breaths from the deep
well of my body, how to unclench
my jaw or else keep cracking my teeth
and tonguing the grit. The smallest
graves I’d see with my eyes closed
but I don’t close them. I’ve forgotten how.
Sleep was a dress I wore threadbare
as a child but grew out of. If there is
a God, is there such a thing
as holy regret for what He’s made?
What He’s—laissez-faire—allowed us
to break? As if He’s turned His head,
watching anything but the world. What else
is there to watch, I want to ask.
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