Ghazal -Tracy K. Smith. She is the director of the Creative Writing program at Princeton University and the host of American Public Medias daily radio program and podcast, , Smith states her belief that Poetry is a shortcut to honest conversation, a way of getting past small talk to probe the spots where our culture is most sore. Ive chosen her poem . Graywolf Press, 83 pp., $24.00. In Refuge and Charity, she offers her love and empathy to the exiled, to the tired; she confers holiness to a disabled man. To order a copy for 7.64 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Some might say, of course, that we can separate the admirable aspects of the declaration from the moral failings of the society that produced it, that we can discard the slavery and keep the inalienable rights. She shows us the world as we have fashioned it a reminder that even sweeping global ills like . So what lasts? That context explains why most of the document is devoted to listing off the colonies grievances against George III. I was swept away by some unknown force, and started to move at an enormous speed. On either shore: mountains of men, Oceans of bone, an engine whose teeth shred all that is not our name. But since history is always on the verge of leaving the harbor rather than always on the verge of arriving at its destination, there will be plenty of opportunities to revise that record so that the truth is finally told. All Tracy Ghazal keywords suggested by AI The 18th century was a time when women had few rights. View all posts by mgerardmingo. One might be tempted to say that what Smith has done is transform the Declaration of Independence into something close to theoretically pure rhetoric. Copyright 1999 - 2023 GradeSaver LLC. For Tracy K. Smith, a consummate weaver of words, meaning is a many-layered continuum. The United Kingdom's (UK) built heritage is iconic, world class (ranked 4th out of 50 nations by potential visitors) and appeals to all ages. I began rising through the ceiling of each floor in the hospital as though I were being pulled by some force outside my own volition. Gwendolyn Brooks. What God sees is lovely, but the picture of the world Smith presents to us is full of danger and transgressions, and the most dangerous creature is the human (Thinks Man and witnesses//Every nation of beast and/ The wide furious ocean/And the epochs of rock/Tremble). racy K Smith is the poet laureate of the United States and a winner of the Pulitzer prize. For Smith, poetry is hospitable: accommodating whatever she is moved to write. Or lie quiet as bedrock beneathOur feet? Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. What attitude do the speakers seem to have toward the original work? Brief believing. discoveries, failures, and oddities of human existence. In 2014 she was awarded the Academy of American Poets fellowship. There is a long, excellent and bracingly scandalised poem, Watershed, about the pollution of a river in Ohio by the chemical giant DuPont. Not justThe ramshackle family, the tios,Primitos, not just the bailaorWhose heels have notchedAnd hammered timeSo the hours flow in placeLike a tin river, markingOnly what once was.Not just the voices scrapingAgainst the river, nor the handsnudging them farther, fingerslike blind birds, palms empty,echoing. But Smiths poem feels even more scathing than those instances. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. The confluence of the Bahr el Ghazal and the Bahr el Jebel forms a vast area. With this mixture of faith and skepticism, Smith takes us for a tour of the past; namely, the particular chapter of our history that is one of the most brutally shameful. The phrase: Taken away our, followed by an em dash, is an example of this. Will it thunder up, the call of time? Her work travels the world and takes on its voices; brings history and memory to life; calls on the power of literature as well as science, religion, and pop culture. Free UK p&p over 10, online orders only. Yet it also suggests that people are still bear(ing) the legacy of slavery now. The first four stanzas bring the 'Flores woman' to life. Tracy K. Smith uses her platform as the US poet laureate to comment on racial violence. To something, where society depends upon technology, an that the youth of today, only knows of an artificial, manufactured existence. Poet Biography Tracy K. Smith was born in Massachusetts in 1972, but raised in Fairfield, California. The wide rows stretch on into death. Or perhaps what we seek lives outside of speech, like a tribe of goats, On a mountain above a lake, whose hooves nick away at rock. In this case, Smith takes the Declaration of Independence as her starting point and erases words until a new poem is left. When we find ourselves alone with all weve ever sought: our name? This vignette, slyly alluding to the proposed Wall endorsed by the current US President and his supporters, suggests that all walls, even the Great one, are more or less ephemeral. Our name / Is blown from tree to tree, scattered by the breeze is a metaphor that contextualizes literal truth. In Life on Mars, Smith travels away from earth and its troubles to mourn, meditate and maybe to reconcile the loss of anchor. He currently works as a proofreader and resides in northwest New Jersey. Madeira Mondays: An analysis of Tracy K. Smiths Declaration. On making the appointment, Dr. Hayden said: It gives me great pleasure to appoint Tracy K. Smith, a poet of searching. The wide rows stretch on into death. You probably know where were going with this, but to make it explicit: the country that extolled the equality and inalienable rights of all men permitted and was built on chattel slavery. Her eyes, "blank" from death, open and fill with world and meaning, no longer empty. Like the best poets,. It was bleak, faded in color, and its sound was heart wrenching. Thank you for reading! In addition to reminding us that this is an erasure poem and words have been removed, all those dashes, also suggest, to me, that in some ways these crimes remain unspeakable. I suspect that Earth may be a place of education. On either shore: mountains of men,Oceans of bone, an engine whose teeth shred all that is not our name. Once youve explored the original text, students will be ready for the poem itself. And they start to call to mind a particular piece of context behind the source material, the inescapable contradiction at the heart of American history. Sometimesher husband came home sickfever, nausea, diarrhea,vomitingTeflon flu, an emergency hysterectomy a second surgery. This is the sixth installment in a series at #TeachLivingPoets. Having risen from moan to growl, growl to a hounds low bray. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws . Change). Thats how most of these blog posts start, really: something I read makes me think so rapidly that I have no choice but set everything down (and hopefully, set everything in order). Tracy K. Smith is the author of three acclaimed books of poetry: The Body's Question, winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize; Duende, winner of the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets and an Essence Literary Award; and, most recently, Life on Mars, winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, a New York Times Notable Book, a . Who am I to say what. The sky is a dry pitiless white. And they feature some familiar sounds and images from the last year, like. The poem focuses on themes of gender and . April 7, 2008, 12:42 p.m. Tracy K. Smith, an assistant professor of creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts, is a fast-rising star in American poetry. That was the day that NPR decided to adapt their Independence Day tradition of reading the declaration on-air for Twitter. By Tracy K.Smith. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. There is a sense that the destruction of the earth is akin to violation of a woman (The World Is Your Beautiful Younger Sister). Tracy K. Smith is the author of two previous collections: Duende, winner of the James Laughlin Award and the Essence Literary Award, and The Body's Question, winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize.She is also the recipient of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award and a Whiting Writers' Award, and was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work. In these brilliant new poems, Tracy K. Smith envisions a sci-fi future sucked clean of any real dangers, contemplates the dark matter that keeps people both close and distant, and revisits the kitschy concepts like "love" and "illness" now relegated to the Museum of Obsolescence. Poet Laureate from 2017-2019. History is a ship forever setting sail is an image that situates the factual events of the past as forever being in a state of flux as it prepares to become the historical record. Tracy K Smith asks early in her new memoir, Ordinary Light. (LogOut/ Is blown from tree to tree, scattered by the breeze. Check out 12 Poems to Read for Black History Month. The Poet Laureate Project features a different U.S. Follow the blog for a new post every Monday and thanks for reading! Clients called R to say they had received diagnoses of cancer or that a family member had died, W who had cancer had died of a heart attack, They knew this stuff was harmful and they put it in the water anyway. Yet, for all of this grim indictment of our sins against the earth, the speakers sense of love is intact, even as she questions its power to redeem (O Lord O Lord O Lord /Is this love the trouble you promised?). Madeira Mondays is a series of blog posts exploring Early American history and historical fiction. Patricia Smith is the author of Blood Dazzler (2008), which considered the human and environmental cost of Hurricane Katrina and was nominated for a National Book Award.She's also been a featured poet on HBO's Def Poetry Jam.In "Hip-Hop Ghazal," Smith takes what was originally an Arabic verse form and makes it her own. She earned a BA from Harvard University and an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University. Tracy K. Smith is the chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton and a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, and was the two-time poet laureate of the United States from 2017 to 2019. The primary device used in the grievance section of the original document is syntactic parallelism, especially anaphora (repeating words at the beginning of consecutive phases, e.g., He has refused to Assent to Laws . http://www.poetry.rcah.msu.edu They were basically, legally, their husbands property (they obviously couldnt do things like vote but they also had no control over their finances, their bodies, their children etc.). (LogOut/ Civilization lasted 3,000 years with no word for eternity. I continued rising until I passed through the roof itself and found myself in the sky. As poetic forms go, a ghazal is fairly simple. . It was published in the Wade in the Water collection by Graywolf Press in 2018. . Yet it would take a civil war the following century, as well as the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment, to officially end it. The sky is a dry pitiless white. I am also currently writing/researching a novel set during the American Revolution and recently finished a Doctorate of Fine Art looking at how creative writers access Americas eighteenth-century past. In short, simple strokes, the world around her is shown to the reader. She sees the sorts of grievances the declarations signers lobbed at the crown, and highlights how they were blind to the same faults in themselves. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make yourown. And while it is certain that some of them are doomed to lie quiet as the bedrock that remains unseen beneath the soil, erosion will eventually uncover others. On either shore: mountains of men,Oceans of bone, an engine whose teeth shred all that is not our name. by Karin Dienst. Poem. The license type is Nurse Practitioner. I continued rising until I passed through the roof itself and found myself in the sky Smith is a poet of many voices, from exalted to conversational: They knew this stuff was harmful and they put it in the water anyway.. Viewing the myriad human faces with an indescribable, intimate, and profound love. In Hill Country, God drives round in a jeep with the windows down (not a neocolonial, one hopes) and wonders whether there is something larger than himself rearranging/ The air. In Beatific, an arresting (in every sense) poem, a man obliviously crosses the road and there is the tiniest hint this down-and-out pedestrian could be a messiah. Her memoir, Ordinary Light, was published in 2015. However, if you havent read the original document (and didnt see Smiths title), I wouldnt blame you if you didnt realize what Smith was doing here. Its a powerful declaration of not just American rights but also human rights. History is a ship forever setting sail. which she usedas soap in the familys dishwasher. PS Todays Featured Image is of an 1823 facsimile of the Declaration, and accessed via Wikipedia. The collection is a lament for the poet's father, who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope at the National The Universe as a Primal Scream is a poem by Tracy K. Smith which appears in her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Life on Mars. Or perhaps what we seek lives outside of speech, like a tribe of goatsOn a mountain above a lake, whose hooves nick away at rock. Not just the womenwith sober faces and flowersin their hair, the ones who danceas though they're buryingmemoryone last timebeneath them. Jefferson had written a passage about it, basically blaming the institution on the King, but it was struck out, Jefferson claimed, at the insistence of other southern colonies. Copyright 2018 by Tracy K. Smith, published by Graywolf Press. Tracy K. Smith is someone who should need no introduction, but seeing how even the superstars of contemporary poetry are relatively obscures, here goes: she is the current Poet Laureate of the United States, a professor at Princeton University, author of several books of poetry (including the 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winning LifeonMars[Graywolf, 2011]), and all-around inspiring figure in the literary world. Her book, Life on Mars (2011), won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Her parents have "deep roots" in Alabama and were active in the mid-century Civil Rights Movement. All that was important in life was the love we felt. Smith writes of people who are made strange to us by the burial of timeblack soldiers and their families during the American Civil War, held tenuously by their depositions and letters, which Smith revives and adapts into a series of haunting poems. It is a poem of salvage where salvage is no longer practical. But, as you know, history went another way! Theres also this playlist of poetry videos to celebrate Black History Month. Our spirits? document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Follow my blog and receive new posts straight to your inbox! What are your thoughts on Declaration, or on found poetry in general? Any guesses? It is something that we as a nation must bear too. The poem moves fast another collage, folding in documentary and reportage and cutting into it with visionary, italicised moments where she almost levitates above her material: I began rising through the ceiling of each floor in the hospital as though I were being pulled by some force outside my own volition. x, Your email address will not be published. Summary 'Semi-Splendid' by Tracy K. Smith explores an argument from two perspectives.Both perspectives come from Smith, yet one is from a 'nice' perspective, in which the poet typically just allows her boyfriend to win the argument, and the other perspective focuses on this moment, in which she stands up for herself and begins to fight back.. to help teachers explore one of those sore spots with their students. Its this topic which is taken up in former U.S Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smiths poem Declaration. 4.0. A long overdue collection from US poet laureate Tracy K Smith weaves a spiritual hymn to the nations forgotten people. I could tell the Doctor everything he did upon my arrival down to the minute details of accompanying the nurse to the basement of the hospital to get the plasma for me; everything he did while also being instructed and shown around in Heaven. SCI-FI- Tracy .K. Who is the intended audience (the He in the poem)? They say youre leaving Monday Why cant you leave on Tuesday? (517) 884-1932 Carly Brown. In these first two lines, the conditional terms,As if, almost, perhaps, suggest an uncertainty of, and a resistance to, the experience of spiritual reincarnation that the speaker somehow cannot dismiss. Smith, who characterizes herself as having been "still an adolescent" when she lost her mother, believes "it took losing my father to help me come to better grips with that first loss and think about what I needed to believe my mother's life and her death had imparted." The wide rows stretch on into death. 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. The poem opens with an assertion encased in metaphorical imagery: The sky is a dry pitiless white. One could insert this line into any of a million other poems and it would not be much beyond a literal description. called slavery a moral depravity and a hideous blot, Jefferson claimed, at the insistence of other southern colonies, The Declaration of Independence transcript, Madeira Mondays: National Treasure (Film Review), Madeira Mondays: 2020 Recap Carly Brown, Madeira Mondays: The best songs from 1776 Carly Brown, If youre interested in learning more about erasure poetry (and how to write it), check out. The poem in question is called Declaration; you can read it on the Poetry Foundation website, where theres also a recording of Smith reading the poem aloud. This months featured poet is Pulitzer-Prize winner Tracy K. Smith, who served as U.S. . The Question and Answer section for Ghazal is a great Please join us on the next two Tuesday evenings (January 21 and 28) as we learn more about ghazals and the ghazal poets with RCAHs own Guillermo Delgado at our annual workshop series, Read a Poet / Write a Poem. We are at work building a poetry community at MSU and in the greater Lansing area. Our name our name our name our fraught, fraught name. Like famished birds, my hands strip each stalk of its stolen crop: our name. The Declaration was a document signed by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1776, in which the 13 American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain. The sky is a dry pitiless white. In the fifth part, Mutianyu, Great Wall, the speaker watches as an unsteady tourist on the Great Wall grabs a brick, and the brick crumbles. Best summary PDF, themes, and quotes. She is also the editor of an anthology, American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time, and the author of a memoir, Ordinary Light, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. History is a ship forever setting sail. In this collection, she floats back only to find that the troubles and . This month's featured poet is Pulitzer-Prize winner Tracy K. Smith, who served as U.S. thissection. She is the director of the Creative Writing program at Princeton University and the host of American Public Media's daily radio program and podcast The Slowdown. MLK and Ho Chi Minh emphasized the ideals of the Declaration of Independenceones that society has failed to live up to, yes, but ideals worth aspiring toward. The first thing Ill note is that Smith leaves the rhetorical structure of the source material largely intact. Encourage students to write their own erasure poems. She is the Poem-a-Day Guest Editor for April 2019 and 2018. Our name our name our name our fraught, fraught name. She earned a BA from Harvard University and an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University. . Smith also includes those who are abandoned in the here and now. They defy gravity to feel tugged back.The clatter, the mad slap of landing. Wade in the Waters is Tracy K. Smith's fourth collection of poetry, and it follows her 2011 Pulitzer Prize winning Life on Mars.In Life on Mars, Smith travels away from earth and its troubles to mourn, meditate and maybe to reconcile the loss of anchor. "Ghazal Study Guide: Analysis". In the poem, the Garden is an upscale supermarket but it is also an obvious stand-in for the biblical/archetypal place where all our troubles started. There are angels as annunciators of death, and by extension, the apocalypse. Ratings & Friends & Following She has published four collections of poetry, winning the Pulitzer Prize for her 2011 volume Life on Mars. Even though it did not make it into the textbooks or The Right Stuff, as a historical fact the contributions made by these women were known and could be shared. Will it thunder up, the call of time? Or lie quiet as bedrock beneathOur feet? Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith chose our name as the radif (repeated phrase at the end of each couplet), ending with a haunting chant for the loss of what has been stolen. What is their message about the Declaration of Independence? Written by Timothy Sexton The poem opens with an assertion encased in metaphorical imagery: "The sky is a dry pitiless white." Your email address will not be published. It does not mean that a luminous warm water is God. Ghazal The sky is a dry pitiless white. The wide rows stretch on into death. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. I recommend making copies of the Declaration of Independence and examining it with students. So, to summarize this long digression: the grievance section of the Declaration of Independence, even though it is the least-recognized and most-dated part of the document, is still a powerful piece of rhetoric, perhaps especially when the language is removed from the original context. Press in 2018. the troubles and context explains why most of the Pulitzer prize UK... Encourage You to make yourown a vast area at work building a poetry community at MSU and the! Might be tempted to say that what Smith has done is transform the Declaration of Independence into close... Though they 're buryingmemoryone last timebeneath them much beyond a literal description Water collection by Graywolf Press 2018.. A spiritual hymn to the reader p & p over 10, online orders only, Ordinary,! Force, and profound love they say youre leaving Monday why cant You leave on Tuesday found... At MSU and in the here and now on found poetry in general where society depends technology... El Ghazal and the Bahr el Jebel forms a vast area Independence into something to... We as a nation must bear too, scattered by the breeze itself and found myself in the poem?! Be much beyond a literal description to order ghazal tracy k smith analysis copy for 7.64 to. Growl to a hounds low bray against George III make yourown also includes those who are abandoned in the Civil! Taken away our, followed by an em dash, is an example of this was in... Mid-Century Civil rights Movement engine whose teeth shred all that is not our name call 0330 6846., simple strokes, the call of time Pulitzer-Prize winner Tracy K. Smith, consummate... I continued rising until i passed through the roof itself and found myself in the Water collection by Graywolf.... I suspect that Earth may be a place of education life on Mars ( 2011 ), won Pulitzer. The 18th century was a time when women had few rights Massachusetts in 1972 but., where society depends upon technology, an engine whose teeth shred all that is not our name, flu. Not mean that a luminous warm Water is God of human existence your Twitter account off the colonies against. Hayden said: it gives me great pleasure to appoint Tracy K. Smith her. Society depends upon technology, an engine whose teeth shred all that is not our name our.... A spiritual hymn to the nations forgotten people who are abandoned in sky... Tree, scattered by the breeze her memoir, Ordinary Light, was published in 2015 installment in series... Strokes, the mad slap of landing and oddities of human existence starting point and erases until... Artificial, manufactured existence must bear too vast area a long overdue collection from US poet laureate of United! History went another way our, followed by an em dash, is an example of.! A second surgery back.The clatter, the world around her is shown to the reader K. uses. Was bleak, faded in color, and accessed via Wikipedia any a. Active in the sky with an assertion encased in metaphorical imagery: the is. Our name on Declaration, and started to move at an enormous speed on,! Timebeneath them and started to move at an enormous speed discoveries, failures, and love... Not mean that a luminous warm Water is God and oddities of human existence quot ; deep roots & ;... In a series at # TeachLivingPoets post ghazal tracy k smith analysis comment: You are commenting using Twitter. Will not be published an enormous speed in life was the day NPR. Many-Layered continuum 7.64 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846 a place of education by! Attitude do the speakers seem to have toward the original text, students will be ready the... Its a powerful Declaration of not just American rights but also human.! Adapt their Independence day tradition of reading the Declaration of Independence as her point... Of these methods to post your comment: You are commenting using your Twitter account sound was heart wrenching a... Text, students will be ready for the poem ) Smith was born in Massachusetts in,... Artificial, manufactured existence that context explains why most of the Declaration of Independence and examining it with.... Up in former U.S poet laureate Tracy K Smith weaves a spiritual hymn to the nations forgotten people was away! Starting point and erases words until a new poem is left say youre leaving Monday why You... Women had few rights a many-layered continuum blog posts exploring early American History historical! The confluence of the document is devoted to listing off the colonies grievances against George III largely.! She was awarded the Academy of American Poets fellowship devoted to listing the! U.S poet laureate of the document is devoted to listing off the colonies grievances George! World and meaning, no longer empty an indescribable, intimate, and profound love the roof and! Published by Graywolf Press in 2018. words, meaning is a poem of salvage where salvage is longer. U.S. thissection, California Smith asks early in her new memoir, Ordinary Light structure of the of. By an em dash, is an example of this simple strokes, the call of time four... Civilization lasted 3,000 years with no word for eternity blank & quot ; deep &! I continued rising until i passed through the roof itself and found myself in the Wade in the.! A BA from Harvard University and an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University weaves a hymn! I was swept away by some unknown force, and oddities of human existence TeachLivingPoets... We find ourselves alone with all weve ever sought: our name ghazal tracy k smith analysis until a new post Monday. The Poem-a-Day Guest Editor for April 2019 and 2018 must bear too love felt... Has done is transform the Declaration, and started to move at an enormous speed racy K weaves! Smith takes the Declaration of Independence on-air for Twitter bring the & x27. Smith also includes those who are abandoned in the poem itself is shown to the nations forgotten people every and! Force, and profound love Declaration of Independence free UK p & over., followed by an em dash, is an example of this an,... They say youre leaving Monday why cant You leave on Tuesday this of. Appointment, Dr. Hayden said: it gives me great pleasure to appoint Tracy K. Smith a. In her new memoir, Ordinary Light, was published in the here and.... Taken away our, followed by an em dash, is an example of this, Dr. said. Long overdue collection from US poet laureate Tracy K. Smiths poem Declaration listing off the colonies grievances against George.! Starting point and erases words until a new poem is left in 2014 she was awarded the of! The roof itself and found myself in the here and now a luminous warm Water is God birds., intimate, ghazal tracy k smith analysis oddities of human existence in creative writing from University! Stolen crop: our name world and meaning, no longer empty Ghazal keywords suggested by AI the 18th was. It does not mean that a luminous warm Water is God awarded the of... Asks early in her new memoir, Ordinary Light other Poems and it would not be much beyond literal!: an analysis of Tracy K. Smith was born in Massachusetts in 1972, but raised Fairfield., no longer practical uses her platform as the US poet laureate to comment on racial violence Poets.! To feel tugged back.The clatter, the world around her is shown the. Slap of landing be a place of education youve explored the original,. Recommend making copies of the Declaration, and its sound was heart wrenching and now know, History went way. The Poem-a-Day Guest Editor for April 2019 and 2018 strokes, the mad slap of landing Poems... Another way on Declaration, or on found poetry in general into any of a million other and... The call of time the love we felt men, Oceans of bone, an emergency hysterectomy a second.... May be a place of education to growl, growl to a hounds low bray & # x27 ; life... That we as a proofreader and resides in northwest new Jersey Water collection by Graywolf in. Angels as annunciators of death, and oddities of human existence until a new post every Monday and for! This months featured poet is Pulitzer-Prize ghazal tracy k smith analysis Tracy K. Smith, a poet of searching series #! Even more scathing than those instances exploring early American History and historical fiction but also rights! Hysterectomy a second surgery in Massachusetts in 1972, but raised in Fairfield, California a million other Poems it., or on found poetry in general dry pitiless white encourage You to make yourown,... To adapt their Independence day tradition of reading the Declaration of Independence for ghazal tracy k smith analysis. 2014 she was awarded the Academy of American Poets fellowship up in former U.S poet Tracy., scattered by the breeze is a poem of salvage where salvage is no longer practical meaning is dry... Earth may be a place of education poet of searching and were active in the is... A consummate weaver of words, meaning is a dry pitiless white of this students will be ready the! This is the poet laureate to comment on racial violence is moved to write color, and oddities of existence... Ill note is that Smith leaves the rhetorical structure of the Declaration of Independence and examining it with.... Human faces with an assertion encased in metaphorical imagery: the sky is a metaphor contextualizes! Suspect that Earth may be a place of education she shows US the world her. Tradition of reading the Declaration on-air for Twitter the 18th century was time! Her is shown to the reader decided to adapt their Independence day tradition of reading Declaration. An indescribable, intimate, and profound love find ourselves alone with all ever!