Publisher's Weekly Review
History is in a hurry," writes Smith in her first collection since the Pulitzer-winning Life on Mars, and these lyrical meditations on class, environmental threat, and America's bloody heritage prove that the current U.S. poet laureate is plenty capable of keeping up with that "ship forever setting sail." Readers familiar with Smith's work will feel at home in "this dark where the earth floats." Some poems inhabit a more boldly theological space than does previous work, yet Smith's sense of the numinous stays appealingly grounded, as when she describes the "everlasting self" as "Gathered, shed, spread, then/ Forgotten, reabsorbed. Like love/ From a lifetime ago, and mud/ A dog has tracked across the floor." Whether presenting a sardonic erasure of the Declaration of Independence or dramatizing the correspondence between black Civil War soldiers and their wives, Smith nimbly balances lyricism and direct speech. In "Annunciation," she boldly states, "I've turned old. I ache most/ To be confronted by the real,/ the pitiless, the bleak." But a wry playfulness leavens her weightier concerns, and she leaves a small window open on her private self: "Flying home, I snuck a wedge of brie, and wept/ Through a movie starring Angelina Jolie." Smith remains a master whose technical skill enhances her emotional facilities, one ever able to leave readers "feeling pierced suddenly/ By pillars of heavy light." (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Poetry requires acts of exquisite selection and distillation that Smith, poet laureate of the United States, performs with virtuosity and passion throughout her profoundly affecting fourth collection. Smith begins with ravishing lyrics of earthy spirituality. Two angels appear in a motel room: Grizzled, / in leather biker gear. In Hill Country, the rolling cadence traces the journey of God himself across rising and falling terrain in a jeep with the windows down. The title poem subtly captures the struggle between belief in a higher love and the cruel reality of the old South. Smith then illuminates personal perspectives on the Civil War in artistic feats of erasure and extraction, including a long poem composed of judiciously selected excerpts from letters to President Lincoln by black soldiers and their mothers and wives, heartrending testimony to the dire deprivation of those who risked their lives for the Union, yet were denied the most fundamental compensation. Smith is equally arresting in poems about contemporary injustices, including Watershed, a stunning response to the consequences of a corporation's unconscionable dumping of carcinogenic chemical waste. The sacred and the malevolent are astutely juxtaposed in this beautifully formed, deeply delving, and caring volume.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2018 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
THE MARS ROOM, by Rachel Kushner. (Scribner, $27.) Kushner's much-anticipated new novel, a powerful and realistic page turner about a former lap dancer serving two life sentences in a women's prison, reveals an imagination Dickensian in its amplitude - and in its reformist zeal. YOU THINK IT, I'LL SAY IT, by Curtis Sittenfeld. (Random House, $27.) In the lives of Sittenfeld's characters, the lusts and disappointments of youth loom large well into middle age. But their trials, in the scheme of things, are manageable enough to allow for comedy, which Sittenfeld is a pro at delivering in the details. THE ROAD TO UNFREEDOM: Russia, Europe, America, by Timothy Snyder. (Tim Duggan Books, $27.) In his latest book, Snyder considers how democracies fall apart, placing the blame for political instability in Western countries from France to the United States on domestic cultural forces but also, in particular, on Russia and the policies of its leader, Vladimir Putin. BIBI: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu, by Anshel Pfeffer. (Basic Books, $32.) This superbly researched biography of the controversial, scandal-plagued Israeli prime minister will likely become an essential contribution to understanding Netanyahu and his fractured country. WADE IN THE WATER: Poems, by Tracy K. Smith. (Graywolf, $24.) In her new collection, the poet laureate addresses national traumas including slavery and the Civil War - some of the poems are drawn from the letters of black soldiers - while asking how an artist might navigate the political and the personal. FEAST DAYS, by Ian MacKenzie. (Little, Brown, $26.) The disaffected American narrator of this novel has followed her banker husband to Säo Paulo, Brazil. But the city and its people may be too much for her. MacKenzie makes clear what his protagonist might not always see: that her life stands in stark contrast to those of the impoverished locals. BATTLESHIP YAMATO: Of War, Beauty and Irony, by Jan Morris. (Liveright, $15.95.) The end of World War II signaled the end of the era of great sea battles. In this slender, lavishly illustrated volume, Morris sees the sinking of Japan's greatest warship as a fitting symbol of that passing. WHAT IS REAL? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics, by Adam Becker. (Basic Books, $32.) "Figuring out what quantum physics is saying about the world has been hard," Becker writes in his incisive exploration of quantum theory, possibly the most consequential controversy in modern science. THE DRAGON SLAYER: Folktales From Latin America, written and illustrated by Jaime Hernandez. (TOON Books, $16.95; ages 6 to 12.) Three folk tales in graphic-novel form; a buoyant delight. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
Library Journal Review
In the newest work by America's current Poet Laureate Smith (author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Life on Mars), the personal and political, historical and contemporary merge in a collection that not only addresses issues the United States is facing today-attitudes toward immigrants in "The United States Welcomes You" and water poisoned by corporate greed and indifference in "Watershed," for example-but also gives voice to enslaved people in the Civil War era. What in lesser hands could be jarring here becomes a lyric tapestry, weaving poems created from the actual writings of the enslaved together with highly personal and immediate works. This allows listeners to come to understand that seemingly disparate events and experiences are, in many ways, connected on a very human level. The poems themselves are artful in the best meaning of the word; this is a writer working at the height of her craft. That these poems are then read by Smith herself gives them an extra vibrancy, allowing listeners to hear the nuances of meter and stresses as the poet wishes us to hear them. VERDICT A powerful collection that highlights all of Smith's strengths as a poet. Highly recommended. ["Technically accomplished and precisely attuned to our current cultural climate, Smith, like William Butler Yeats, once again demonstrates how an engaged, activist poetry need not forgo lyricism, compassion, and complexity to be effective": LJ 2/15/18 review of the Graywolf hc.]-Wendy Galgan, St. Francis Coll., Brooklyn © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
