This
month, BLASt's meeting was devoted to Tracy K. Smith's book of poems entitled Life
on Mars. Published in 2011, the collection was awarded The Pulitzer Prize
in the following year. Our discussion focused on the treatment of science,
science-fiction and the notion of the universe both in poetry and in prose, as
well as the differences between the two modes. We also investigated Smith's
formal approach towards poetry writing and her re-working of the elegy genre,
the poet's use of pop-references (incl. David Bowie and Charlton Heston) and
the affinity of her works with confessional poetry.
Life on Mars is Smith’s wild, far-ranging elegy for him. Its alternating cosmic
breadth and intimate focus derives from the shared situation of poets and
astronomers, squinting to glimpse immensity: “bowing before the oracle-eye,
hungry for what it would find.” Smith’s own poetic focus, though polished, like
the lenses of the Hubble, “to an impossible strength,” is often directed to the
here and now: the book is by turns intimate, even confessional, regarding
private life in light of its potential extermination, and resoundingly
political, warning of a future that “isn’t what it used to be.”- Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker
by Małgorzata Olsza
