19 pages • 38 minutes read
Tracy K. SmithThe Good Life
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
“My God, It’s Full of Stars” by Tracy K. Smith (2011)
Appearing second in the first section of Life on Mars, this longer poem does a great job of touching on many of the major themes and motifs of Smith’s book. The poem is split into multiple sections that deal with outer space, science fiction, Smith’s childhood, God, and existential satisfaction. Though “The Good Life” may not touch on many of the flashier themes of the book and appears in the fourth and final section of Life on Mars, “My God, It’s Full of Stars” provides a valuable counterpoint for the typical style and subject matter of the poems in Smith’s collection.
“US & CO.” by Tracy K. Smith (2011)
This formally striking poem is the last to appear in Smith’s collection Life on Mars. Even shorter than “The Good Life,” “US & CO.” is interested in similar themes and questions. How and why should we live, and in what should we find satisfaction? The poem reflects on similar existential issues to “The Good Life,” and expands Smith’s articulation of what such a life looks like as she assembles her ideas in Life on Mars.
“Blue” by Carl Phillips (1992)
Carl Phillips is another important voice in contemporary American poetry and, more importantly, was also a one-time Harvard undergraduate and member of the Dark Room Collective along with Tracy K. Smith. This poem, published during the existence of the Collective, explores identity, Blackness, and memory in ways somewhat reminiscent of Smith’s poetry. “Blue” is characterized by mature, imaginative lyric verse and illustrates both the wide range of the poetic milieu in which Smith was writing and similar thematic interests.
Further Literary Resources
“'Moving toward What I Don’t Know': An Interview with Tracy K. Smith" by Claire Schwartz (2016)
This extensive interview published in The Iowa Review covers Tracy K. Smith’s career and identity as a poet as well as “The Good Life’s” own Life on Mars in particular. Smith discusses her upbringing, influences, views on poetry, and the themes that occupy the poems of Life on Mars. The interview thoroughly explores Smith’s background, her memoir, and each of her first three poetry collections in order to build a comprehensive picture of her career and her conception of the American poetic context which she inhabits.
“Tracy K. Smith’s Poetry of Desire” by Hilton Als (2018)
The New Yorker devotes a good deal of space to this reflection on Smith’s poetry, which both analyzes her career as well as individual poems and stanzas. The Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Hilton Als is also a professor of writing at one of Smith’s alma maters, Columbia University. Als brings his journalistic skill together with his literary acumen to provide an in-depth analysis of the roles of race, identity, desire, sexuality, and love in Smith’s work.
“‘Vast and Unreadable’: Tracy K. Smith, Astronomy, and Lyric Opacity in Contemporary Poetry” by Margaret Ann Greaves (2020)
This paper, published in the Spring 2020 edition of Contemporary Literature, is a clearly written but scholarly investigation into Smith’s work. Greaves uses close readings of Smith’s poetry—and the poetry of her influences—to draw lines of influence through the American poetic tradition, to articulate the features of contemporary lyric poetry, and to understand the influence of outer space on Smith’s poetry and poetry in general. The essay is comprehensive at about 30 pages long, and it provides a welcome academic analysis of an important contemporary poet.
Listen to Poem
Smith reads her own poem at a Page Meets Stage event, a regular reading series that brings spoken word poets together with traditional poets to perform their poetry.
Related Titles
By Tracy K. Smith
