Poet Tracy Smith on 'Life on Mars'

'Life on Mars' by Tracy K. Smith
'Life on Mars' by Tracy K. Smith
Book cover courtesy of publisher

Poet Tracy Smith won the Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for her book "Life on Mars," published in the Twin Cities by Graywolf Press. Smith spoke to The Daily Circuit during a trip to Minnesota.

Many of Smith's writings explore the deep connection she had to her late father, an engineer who worked on the Hubble Telescope.

From the New York Times review:

At the outset of her third poetry collection, Smith too turns her eyes to the stars in search of perspective and solace, but for her the stakes are considerably higher and the images closer to home. Smith's father was a scientist who worked on the Hubble's development, and in her elegies mourning his death, outer space serves both as a metaphor for the unknowable zone into which her father has vanished and as a way of expressing the hope that his existence hasn't ceased, merely changed.

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