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Maggie Smith is the author of Goldenrod (Simon & Schuster, 2021), Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change (Simon & Schuster, 2020), Good Bones (Tupelo Press, 2017), The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison (Tupelo Press, 2015), Lamp of the Body (Red Hen Press, 2005), and three prizewinning chapbooks.
- Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith is the author of Goldenrod (Simon & Schuster,...
- First Fall
Maggie Smith is the author of Goldenrod (Simon & Schuster,...
- Poems of Anxiety and Uncertainty
Good Bones. Maggie Smith In this short Life that only lasts...
- Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith is the author of Good Bones (Tupelo Press, 2017), The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison (Tupelo Press, 2015), and Lamp of the Body (Red Hen Press, 2005).
- Summary
- Structure
- Poetic Techniques
- Good Bones Analysis
The title of the poem refers to a ‘realtor’ talking through a ‘real shithole’ and pointing out that although the house is terrible, it has a good structure and foundation, and therefore can be made into something beautiful. Smith suggests the same applies to our world. Although filled with terrible people, the earth itself is just like the house, i...
‘Good Bones’ is split by Maggie Smith into 17 lines, comprising one continuous stanza. You could call this form of poetry a monologue, with the lack of stanza division making the poem seem more like a speech than anything else. This rambling tone, with Smith referencing and coming back to past ideas, reflects the idea of a speech, with Smith talkin...
One technique that Smith uses throughout the poem is repetition. On one hand, the use of this technique allows Smith to solidify ideas within the mind of the reader, the idea that ‘Life is short’ being the primary example of this. She builds ideas of the world’s negative aspects, and the fact that life is transient into the poem, allowing the reade...
Lines 1-5
The poem begins with a statement that reflects the transience of human life, ‘Life is short’, with Smith instantly focusing the poem on the negative side of life. She reaffirms this statement with ‘though I keep this from my children.’, the final end stops emphasizing ‘children’ and bringing them to the focus of the line. This first line begins in a style that Smith continues throughout the poem, stating something negative about the world, and suggesting she will not tell her children about t...
Lines 6-13
The central idea of the poem arrives between lines five and six, ‘The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate’, pointing to the inherent evil of man. She suggests that if things were as simple as 50% of the world being good, and 50% being bad, that still means that 1/2 the people you meet would be evil, a staggering number. Yet, things aren’t that simple, this being a ‘conservative estimate’, Smith suggesting that it is probable that a might higher percent...
Lines 14-17
Here Smith focuses on the metaphorof a ‘realtor’ selling a house. They walk through a ‘real shithole’, here representative of the world, and talk about ‘good bones’, focusing on how nice the structure of the house is. This is a tactic to say something positive when there really isn’t anything to say. The world is terrible and broken, but hopefully, this can be mixed – maybe her children can help fix it. Smith withdraws into herself for the final two lines. She uses a rhetorical question, the...
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Close reading of Good Bones by the poet Sandra Beasley. Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate ...
Oct 6, 2020 · Four years after “Good Bones” went viral, in the midst of an even grimmer moment in American history, this new book feels like a clear bid to transform Maggie Smith from a famous (for a poet ...
‘Good Bones’ is the best-known poem by the contemporary American poet Maggie Smith (born 1977) and the title poem of her third full-length poetry collection, Good Bones (2017). First published in 2016, the poem reflects on the negative aspects of life, such as its brevity, and how the speaker of the poem endeavours to shield these harsh ...
Oct 2, 2017 · Published October 2, 2017. Good Bones is a collection of modern poetry that speaks to the world we live in. Maggie Smith contemplates the past and our future, life and death, childhood and motherhood. She writes out of the experience of motherhood, inspired by watching her own children read the world like a book they’ve just opened, knowing ...
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