![]() ![]() ![]() Her discovery of poetry is part of this, but the most remarkable moments in this book are the ones in which Smith deals with ordinary trials, which she treats with rare insight and heart. From there it circles back to Smith’s early childhood, tracing her growth not just as a writer, but as someone who must learn the hard lessons of puberty and early adulthood, as well as what it means to be a black woman growing up in suburban California. Ordinary Life begins with a harrowing scene at the deathbed of Smith’s mother, who died in 1994. This month, Knopf publishes Smith’s fourth book, a memoir, Ordinary Light. When Life on Mars (Graywolf, 2011), her third collection, won the Pulitzer Prize, Smith skyrocketed to a level of fame that transcends the insular world of poetry-making now the perfect time for her to publish a book in prose. Smith has had a successful career as a poet: her first two collections, The Body’s Question and Duende (Graywolf, 20), won major awards, and she began teaching at Princeton following her first book. ![]()
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