Goldenrod
Poems
Maggie Smith
- 128 pagine
- English
- ePUB (disponibile sull'app)
- Disponibile su iOS e Android
Goldenrod
Poems
Maggie Smith
Informazioni sul libro
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR??"To read Maggie Smith is to embrace the achi ngly precious beauty of the present moment." — Time
"A captivating collection from a wise, accessible poet." — People From the award-winning poet and bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful, 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."? Slate called Smith's "superpower as a writer" her "ability to find the perfect concrete metaphor for inchoate human emotions and explore it with empathy and honesty." The poems in Goldenrod celebrate the contours of daily life, explore and delight in the space between thought and experience, and remind us that we decide what is beautiful.
Domande frequenti
Informazioni
1.
This Sort of Thing Happens All the Time
You think you’ve memorized the callsof North American birds, particularlyin the East, but one night you hear a calllike a whistle someone is not blowinghard enough: the ball inside just rattling,rolling. You see a forested mountainand dusk is suddenly thick with words,as if you could hover your cursorabove the pastiche of greens and seeeach name pop up: juniper, citrine, celadon,hunter, fern. I’d say only in a dream,but doesn’t this sort of thing happenall the time? One night you find yourselfon a dark street in the suburbs, with airthat smells like cut grass—jungle, myrtle,viridian, spring—and laundry steam.You’re standing too close to a lit housewhich could be yours—is it yours?—and through blue windows you watchthe evening news. The anchor’s mouthis moving, but outside you hear onlycrickets in the cold, dewy lawn.Crickets and that broken-sounding bird.Then one dog barking. Then two.
Goldenrod
I’m no botanist. If you’re the color of sulfurand growing at the roadside, you’re goldenrod.You don’t care what I call you, whateveryou were born as. You don’t know your own name.But driving near Peoria, the sky pink-orange,the sun bobbing at the horizon, I see everythingis what it is, exactly, in spite of the words I use:black cows, barns falling in on themselves, you.Dear flowers born with a highway view,forgive me if I’ve mistaken you. Goldenrod,whatever your name is, you are with your own kind.Look—the meadow is a mirror, full of you,your reflection repeating. Whatever you are,I see you, wild yellow, and I would let you name me.
Animals
The president called undocumented immigrantsanimals, and in the nature documentaryI watched this morning with my kids,after our Saturday pancakes, the whitefairy tern doesn’t build a nest but laysher single speckled egg in the crook of a branchor a tree knot. It looks precarious therebecause it is. And while she’s away,because even mothers must eat, another birdswoops in and pecks it, sips some of what nowwon’t become. The tern returns and knowssomething isn’t right—the egg crumpled,the red slick and saplike running down the tree—but her instinct is so strong, she sits. Just sitson the broken egg. I have been this bird.We have been animals all our lives,with our spines and warm blood, our milky titsand fine layers of fur. Our live births, too,if we’re lucky. But what animal wrenchesa 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.
The Hum
2323__pe...It’s not a questionwithout the mark: How do we livewith trust in a world that will continueto betray us. Hear my voicenot lift at the end. How do we trustwhen we continue to be betrayed.For the first time I doubtwe’ll find our way back. But howcan we not. See how the terminalmark allows a questionto dress as statement and vice versa.Sometimes if I am quiet and still,I can hear a small huminside me, an appliance left running.Years ago I thought it was comingfrom my bones. The humkept me company, and I thoughtthank god for bones, for the fidelityof bones—they’ll be thereuntil the end and then some.Now what. How to continue.I’ve started calling the humthe soul. Today I have to holdmy breath to hear it. What questiondoes it keep not askingand not asking, never changingits pitch. How do I answer.