Life on Mars

Hypnotic and brimming with irony, the poems in Smith's latest volume aren't so much about outer space as the interior life and the search for the divine. The first poem sets the direction, asking, "Is God being or pure force? The wind/ Or what commands it?" and there are strong religious overtones throughout. Poems bear titles like "The Savior Machine," "Sacrament," and "The Soul," and whether the poet is alluding to Arthur C. Clark's or memorializing her father, the whole feels reminiscent of Dante's . Smith, a Cave Canem Poetry Prize winner for , works mostly in free verse, with a few terza rima and several sonnets mixed in, and her poems are grounded in everyday experiences like eating or walking on a street or in the woods. This soon leads to dreamlike states of consciousness in which the dead communicate with the living. Smith channels the voice of her deceased father, her unborn child, or people in the news who send postcards to those who killed them. The spiritual motif running through these poems adds a stunning dimension that will please many readers.