One great poem to read today: Tracy K. Smith’s “Don’t You Wonder, Sometimes?”
This April marks the 30th iteration of National Poetry Month, which was launched by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996. To celebrate, the Literary Hub staff will be recommending one great poem to read every (work) day of the month. We make no claim (except when we do) that these poems are the “best” poems in any category; they are simply poems we love. The only other thing they all have in common is that they are available to read for free online, so you can enjoy them along with us. The internet is still good for some things, after all. Today we recommend:
Tracy K. Smith’s “Don’t You Wonder, Sometimes?”
I find it difficult to select just one poem from Tracy K. Smith’s 2012 collection Life on Mars, her Pulitzer Prize-winning elegy to her father, who was one of the engineers who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope. I’ve never read a collection that feels so vast—the infinite blackness and endless questions of space!—and so intimate—the grief of a parent’s death—at once. I’ve never read a collection that brought me such rat-a-tat pleasure. But I’ve chosen Smith’s Bowie poem (aka Smith’s “not God, exactly” poem) for maximum crowd pleasing here. It’s playful and spiky and gorgeous, every line its own slick little song. And then you get to the SHINE SHINE SHINE SHINE SHINE…
Emily Temple
Emily Temple is the managing editor at Lit Hub. Her first novel, The Lightness, was published by William Morrow/HarperCollins in June 2020. You can buy it here.
