By my reckoning, these are serious laurels, besides which, she teaches at Princeton. Life on Mars is her third book her first, The Body’s Question, won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, and her second, Duende, won the James Laughlin Award. Smith and realize how successful a poet can be and still be widely unknown, even to avid poetry readers. Perhaps I was disheartened initially to read a little about Tracy K. With all that in mind I wanted to read her book innocently, as a book rather than as a Pulitzer-Prize-Winning-Book, and to share some impressions with our readers. Smith’s Life on Mars is, to some degree, sizing her up, passing judgment, taking an explicit or silent stance as to her worthiness of the immense recognition the Pulitzer grants. It should be noted that winning a major award also opens a poet up to criticism the likes of which they would not otherwise encounter. As a result, those books chosen enter the national discourse in a way others (especially poetry) do not, so reading them involves us in a larger dialogue with other readers.

The Pulitzer Prize and other major awards are a simple way for many readers to manage the chaos. Indeed, it can be difficult to choose a one to read, given that so many are published each year, and so few stand out as ones that we ought to prioritize on our reading lists. It’s easy enough to dismiss a contemporary book based on the obscurity of the writer, press, title, or series. Although it’s impossible to know what goes into the Pulitzer poetry committee’s decision each year (having read every nominated book, would you have chosen the same? what arguments did the readers make on each volume’s behalf?), their choice is an occasion for readers of poetry to encounter a contemporary book of poems that has already been given a special stamp of approval, something like canonization-in-advance.

K smith life on mars