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Reinvigorating Reading

RR#24: Life on Mars

I’m always thinking at breakneck speed. Find it really hard to slow down. This not to say I’m intelligent by any stretch but my inherent need to process information really quickly is a rabbit hole. Visualization comes easy for me but at the cost of feeling for it sometimes, if you know what I mean. This means fantasy fiction was a comfort for me while I’d run at the slightest hint of a poem. Like a coward, I ran away from it just assuming I was never a poem person. I was right. But now I’m actively trying to shake things up. Putting the R in reinvigorating, my friends.

Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith

This attempt was directed at the top of the pile. Life on Mars is a Pulitzer-winning collection by Tracy K. Smith which uses space and science fiction as the basis for its narrative. Yes, that is exactly what attracted me. Smith talks about personal loss, pop culture, racial violence, life, and everything under the sun across 4 parts. Interestingly, she uses multiple formats: verse, prose, letters and I like the contextual use of each of those. Tracy’s father was an engineer who worked on the Hubble Telescope. She encapsulates the grief as a result of his death in what is basically the crown jewel in this collection, ‘My God, It’s Full of Stars’. ‘The Universe: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack’ a come close second. Smith is a big Bowie buff, with numerous nods to the superstar across the poems.

The Read: The hype really does deliver on this one. Some of the constructs are as beautiful as the imagery they conjure. I was really enamoured by the confluence of space, sci-fi, and verse. The writing’s stuck in my head and I would genuinely consider re-reading this again. The cosmic visuals that Smith manages to produce feel like they were ready for production in a visual effects studio. Her writing is raw, heartfelt and my god, it’s full of stars.

Trivia: The book is replete with references. Several of the poems take their titles and characters from Bowie songs, including “Savior Machine” and “Don’t You Wonder, Sometimes?,” which includes an appearance from Ziggy Stardust. The poems also reference media that focused on outer space: “My God, It’s Full of Stars” takes its name from a line in Peter Hyams’s 2001, mentions Stanley Kubrick’s 2001.

Documentation:
Book: Life on Mars

Author: Tracy K Smith

Year of Release: 2011

Publisher: Graywolf Press

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