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Who reads Maggie Smith's poem 'Good Bones'?
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Will 'Good Bones' transform Maggie Smith into a guru of literary self-help?
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. Smith’s poems and...
- 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
Good Bones. Maggie Smith. 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.
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- 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...
Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful. Available as a signed broadside from Tupelo Press
Oct 6, 2020 · Maggie Smith’s “Good Bones” earned her fame as a viral poet. Can her new book turn her into a guru of literary self-help? By Dan Kois. Oct 06, 20203:50 PM. Maggie Smith. The night...
Oct 2, 2017 · Maggie Smith's third poetry collection, Good Bones, explores the past, present and future of motherhood, childhood and death through lyric language and vivid imagery. The title poem, a viral sensation, is one of the collection's highlights, but the other poems also address the challenges and joys of living in a complex and beautiful world.
‘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 ...
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