# data[].attributes.headline
Jake Klugerman Period 4 Poetry Project on Tracy Smith

# data[].attributes.subject
Jake Klugerman Period 4 Poetry Project on Tracy Smith

# data[].attributes.body
An analysis of “The Good Life”

The title of this poem features sarcastic.  In the poem, Smith talks about things like, “being hungry all the time” which is obviously not something that people would consider the good life.  I think that the title contrasted with the negative theme of the poem was a way to lighten up the work.  This poem has a very fluid rhythm, and there is not much punctuation, although there are a few commas.  The way that the poem is written like a casual conversation, with little punctuation reflects the straightforward nature of the message in the poem.  This poem seems to be looking back on some of the struggles Smith experienced in her life.  She uses imagery to create a visual picture of this.  For example her reference to, “coffee and bread.”  These two things can typically be associated with people who do not have sufficient money to buy and abundance of food.  Smith talks about the difficulties her and her family had with money.  She talks about “walking to work on payday.”  This is a reflection of how money was always tight, and of living paycheck to paycheck.  Smith also uses figurative language to further express the challenges she faced financially.  She says she was like a, “women journeying for water from a village without a well.”  One who has to journey away from their home for water is certainly someone who is having financial struggles.  While Smith most likely did have water at her home, she uses this comparison to show the lack of resources in her house and in her neighborhood.  In this poem, Smith’s tone is casual and reminiscent.  The lines are short, with roughly seven words per line, and the poem is one long extended sentence.  The word choice in the poem is also very simple.  These aspects of the poem may have been chosen because they help reflect the bluntness and simplicity in Smith’s message.  They may also have been chosen because she is writing about her youth when she was less skilled, and she may have wanted the poem to closer match her writing from her youth.

# data[].attributes.body
Analysis of  “My God, It’s Full of Stars”

This poem is unique.  It is very long, it is divided into five different sections which total 104 lines and 47 stanzas.  The poem raises the ultimate question, are we alone in the universe.  The poem goes on an interesting route to address that question.  Smith talks about the liveliness in the universe and expresses her wonder about whether or not there is other life in the universe wondering the same things that we are.  Smith is direct in the start of the poem bringing up her main point right away.  She says that, “Perhaps the great error, is believing that we are alone”  Here Smith is strongly suggesting that she feels that in some form there is other life in the universe.  I think it’s interesting that Smith feels not believing in this is a great error, because there is very little proof that there are other life forms in the universe.  I get the sense that her writing here is based less off of science and more off of a hunch that she has always felt.  Smith writes how she can see, “the high beam of a million galaxies flick on at twilight.”  I like how she compared the galaxies lighting up with a light flicking on.  It’s a very simple action representing a very big moment for her, especially when you consider the endless possibility of life that, according to Smith, could be behind all of those little lights.  Smith does not just talk about her thoughts on the ambiguous question of life in the universe, she also expresses a strong desire to one day find an answer to her question.  She says, “I want to be one notch below bedlam, like a radio without a dial.”  The use of the word “bedlam” is intriguing in this situation.  She is acknowledging the potential chaos and uncertainty that comes from the question she is asking, but Smith also shows she wants to be in the heart of that chaos.  I think that after taking a more broad look at the poem, Smith is really expressing the love that she has for the unknown, particularly when it comes to space, and all the parts of it that have yet to be discovered.

# data[].attributes.body
Tracy K. Smith was born in Massachusetts in 1972.  She was raised in California.  Smith was inspired by literature early in her youth, she was specifically impacted by the works of Mark Twain and Emily Dickinson.  She went on to study at Harvard university where she joined a reading series for writers of color called the dark room collective.  Following her time at Harvard, Smith went on to receive her MFA in creative writing from Columbia university.  Smith is the author of four poetry collections, and she has won numerous awards.  Smith won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry.  The first collection of work that she published won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize in 2002.  Her success continued when her second collection won the 2006 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. Her collection called Life on Mars won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.  In 2014 Smith was given another honor when she was selected as the recipient of the Academy of American Poets Fellowship.  In 2017 Smith received one of her highest honors when she was was appointed poet laureate of the United States.  Smith has taught colleges at many universities such as: Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York, the University of Pittsburgh and Columbia University. She taught summer sessions at Bread Loaf School of English of Middlebury College in 2011, 2012, and 2014.  Today, Smith lives in New Jersey where she is the director of the creative writing program at Princeton university.  Tracy has a husband and three children.

# data[].attributes.body
1.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/tracy-k-smith
2.
https://poets.org/poet/tracy-k-smith
3.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracy_K._Smith

# data[].attributes.body
1.  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55519/my-god-its-full-of-stars

2.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55516/sci-fi
3.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55520/dont-you-wonder-sometimes

# data[].attributes.body
1. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/tracy-k-smiths-poetry-of-desire

2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/tracy-k-smith-staying-human-poetry-in-the-age-of-technology/2018/05/29/890b6df2-629b-11e8-a768-ed043e33f1dc_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.041a438e3a7c

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0znrveDbNI