Often rhetorical questions are used to control a reader’s feelings, but in this book, they are asked either to God, or to endless tracts of space where they echo back or place pressure on the reader to come up with a response. The word “walk” is repeated as a verb and noun, and as a rhetorical question. Working in a range of forms, the poem (like most in the book) weaves hard-won wisdom with heartfelt observations it “worries” or bends the word “walk,” for example, in section three, as the speaker tries to come to terms with the cold hand of death, even as it celebrates the lessons delivered to her from the father, who exists in the hallways of her memory. The most demanding poem, the book’s masterpiece, is at its center, “The Speed of Belief,” and is focused on the death of the poet’s father, Floyd Smith.
For many of these, the speakers’ tones show dismay, wonder, awe, with an intelligent, questioning, dissatisfied, razor-sharp voice. Its themes include family births and deaths, outer space as a metaphor for inner space, and broader political questions regarding violence and power.
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Tracy Smith’s Life on Mars is a strong, surprising, and often beautiful book.
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