Good Bones

by Maggie Smith

Poems written out of the experience of motherhood, inspired by the poet watching her own children trying to read the world like a book they've just opened, knowing nothing of the characters or plot.--

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Parenting, Feminism, Adult, Nature, Literature

99 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2017

About the author

Maggie Smith is the author of the national bestseller Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change (One Signal/Simon & Schuster 2020); Good Bones (Tupelo Press, 2017); The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison (Tupelo Press 2015), winner of the Dorset Prize, selected by Kimiko Hahn; and Lamp of the Body (Red Hen Press 2005), winner of the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award; and three prizewinning chapbooks.

Smith's poems and essays have appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, Poetry, Image, The Best American Poetry, The Paris Review, AGNI, Guernica, Brevity, the Washington Post, The Gettysburg Review, Ploughshares, and many other journals and anthologies. In 2016 her poem “Good Bones” went viral internationally and has been translated into nearly a dozen languages. In April 2017 the poem was featured on the CBS primetime drama Madam Secretary.

A 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, Maggie Smith works as freelance writer and editor. She is an Editor at Large at the Kenyon Review and is also on the faculty of Spalding University's low-residency MFA program.

Reviews

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know I'm in a very small minority here but I was very disappointed in this collection. I didn't hate it but I found it ultimately not very interesting. I've been reading so much poetry this year that I loved, found exciting and challenging and this doesn't live up to what I've gotten used to.

It was at first a pleasure to read poetry that was so accessible and I enjoyed Smith's writing about motherhood. But when I finished, I found that it easily and quickly slipped away. I may sometimes get tired of wrestling with poems that elude easy interpretation but I love how they can make me feel even while I struggle with them. The richness of language, complexity of thought, striking images: that's what I've come to crave.

So this is my small voice of dissent. I'm sure it won't stop people from reading and enjoying this collection. For myself, this volume did not live up to my expectations (which were, perhaps, too high).

[Ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Four sections, 13 poems in each, 52 total (Hey, Mikey! He does math!)

I especially liked the first section and felt like a lot of the stronger stuff was placed there. Her topics are hometowns, nature, past/present/future, and especially motherhood. There's one thematic thread about a little girl shadowed by a hawk in the air. Also one about a father gone far away before returning many moons later to find a grown child and a changed mother.

The title poem opens the final section and is surely the most famous in this collection. You might recognize it:


Good Bones

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
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. 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.

Like her stuff. Like her subject matter. Like the different angles she took on creativity. For a look at another poem from this collection, you can go to my website here.

[D.A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

As if lost in the soft, bewitching world of fairy tale, Maggie Smith conceives and brings forth this metaphysical Baedeker, a guidebook for mother and child to lead each other into a hopeful present. Smith's poems affirm the virtues of humanity: compassion, empathy, and the ability to comfort one another when darkness falls. "There is a light," she tells us, "and the light is good."

[Steven Peck · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite poetry books this year. Multifaceted, and layered, ‘Good Bones’ explored threads about the difficulties of existence, especially in motherhood and all its complexities. Nature and relationships provided the canvas for the things she explored and the themes she developed. I was often struck with how the poems captured the depth and terror of life, yet never became unanchored from hope. There is not a poem in this book that did not succeed on multiple levels. A wonderful book that I highly recommend.

[birdbassador · Rating 3 out of 5]

just like in europe they have pictures of diseased lungs on the cigarette packs because the written warnings weren't enough, i think there should be a visual warning on collections if the poet is from ohio or is going to talk about ohio.

[M. Gaffney · Rating 5 out of 5]

These poems are the raw, quiet, beautiful light I needed.

[Roisin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is now my whole personality. Don’t talk to me unless it’s about Maggie Smith’s poetry (critique also strongly encouraged)

[Malia Saldaña · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh.

[Julie Grace Immink · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mothers, salespeople of dilapidated farmhouses, promising "potential."

[katy · Rating 5 out of 5]

i think maggie smith is what i’m always hoping mary oliver will be for me…

rip sealey challenge school/work/life is whooping my ass rn BUT at least it lead me to read this

the way smith writes about her children had me tearing up so many times

favorites:
- weep up
- you could never take a car to greenland
- at your age i wore a darkness
- nest
- rough air
- parachute
- illustration
- good bones

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

I connected with these poems about motherhood and about loving the world that is both broken and beautiful. Glad to have this on my shelf.

[Ella · Rating 5 out of 5]

i was initially underwhelmed compared to the titular poem, though that idea was quickly proven hasty. the stand out poems are just as crushing as i was hoping for, and i can see myself returning to them frequently. much of this collection is both a love letter to and a grappling with the grief of motherhood but it’s no less poignant and beautiful without that insight, simply less personal. gorgeous and heart wrenching.

[Billy Jepma · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some real gems in here—the poem the book is titled after is exceptional, and there are others that I couldn’t help but dog-ear the pages of—but there’s a lot of repetition as well. Smith writes a lot about motherhood, about watching her kids growing up and experiencing bits of the world for the first time, but there are only so many contexts you can say the same thing before it loses its edge. And that’s what happened with this collection.

Smith’s writing is lovely, and often sharp with its precision of language and imagery. But as pleasant to read as they were, very few resonated. I wish the subject matter had been more varied, or at least presented more dynamically, but as someone who isn’t a parent and can’t imagine being one anytime soon, it was difficult for me to resonate with much of the material collected here.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been meaning to read this whole book for a while, after having read several of her poems online. I’ve already texted one of the poems to a friend and re-read “At Your Age I Wore a Darkness” a bunch of times. Damn.

[Indy Scarletti (paperindy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good Bones was such a beautiful collection of poems on motherhood, hope, loss and moving through the world. There were so many moments that moved me and it is one that I will return to and ponder on well into the future. I had high expectations for this collection and it did not disappoint. What a lovely way to start my reading for the year!

[vasiliki ˖ ࣪⊹ · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I’m desperate for you / to love the world because I brought you here.”


“The man will return, / but what a strange homecoming to the world / belonging to the woman and child.”


“What can I give you / to carry there? These shadows / of leaves— the lace in solace?”


“Where do you open? / Where do you carry your dead?”


“High in a pine / is a soft, blond nest of baby hair.”


“A child / is not a talisman. Neither am I, I’m afraid.”

[Phil J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maggie Smith strikes the perfect balance of imagery, feeling, and theme. She has something to say, says it through a metaphor or turn of phrase, and puts it in a way that encourages reflection.

When you have children, it causes you to reflect on the world you brought them into, your own past, and your feelings about the future. Maggie Smith captures this with a contemplative, sometimes fearful, sometimes hopeful mood.

The poem "Good Bones" gets a big push from the publisher all over the book jacket. It's good, but a little more direct than the other poems in the book. There are at least five poems in here that I like better, my favorite being "Sky" or any of the other first six poems. Here's the end of "Sky":

When you walk,
the soles of your feet take turns on the ground,
but the rest of you is in the sky, enveloped in sky.
As you move through it, you make a tunnel
in the precise size and shape of your body.

[Kristin Boldon · Rating 5 out of 5]

First read 2018: Beautiful, sad, sometimes funny, always achingly true poetry.

Second read 2021: bought this as a gift for someone who said they don't like poetry. Opened it. Started reading. Finished it. Still amazing.

[Katherine Pershey · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best poetry collections I’ve read. So raw and resonant.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are divine; their imagery and rhythm are beautiful. I read several to my daughter, particularly those inspired by Maggie’s daughter. (I suspect these two girls would get along very well if they met.) Julia was delighted by them. “Another, read another!” once I finished one.

Read Harder 2019: A book of poetry published since 2014

[K Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful poet. The poem that this book is named for is one of my favorites. I’ve taught it in class, posted it to social media, and referred to it after numerous community tragedies. She’s a brilliant poet whose voice is terribly relevant right now. She also keeps an active Twitter account that has lead me to more poets and engaging content. Highly recommend.

[Irene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry is always a hard sell for me and 80% of this collection made me feel something; there were very few poems with which I didn't connect. Particularly surprising, considering most of them revolve around motherhood and I don't have children nor want to have any. And yet.

[T J · Rating 5 out of 5]

I guess the poem "Good Bones" made Smith famous in 2016, but I love her love poem to the world--p. 92.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

The loveliest poems were those where she answered her daughter’s insightful questions about the world and why it is worthy of love.

[Maya Tsingos · Rating 4 out of 5]

filing this under… poetry collections that make me want to be a mother…?

[Jessica Park Rhode · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection where the best parts are small ideas or singular images or turns of phrase. Some of them are breathtaking in their simplicity and depth.

Maybe it’s because a lot of these are about motherhood? Maybe it’s because I don’t care for the set of linked fairy tale like poems across the text? Maybe it’s because there doesn’t seem to be much under the surface? But this collection doesn’t speak to me as much as the others that I’ve been reading.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really loved this, I see why it rocketed her to success.

[Alarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. That’s probably obvious from my 5-star rating, but I love a lot of poetry books. What sets Good Bones apart is that Smith combined everything I appreciate in poetry in one collection. While she used the title with cynicism, it also describes the careful structuring of her work. When I reached the title poem in the final section, I realized (1) I’d read it before, (2) it was likely the reason the book was on my Wish List, and (3) it was featured in The Best American Poetry 2017, edited by Natasha Trethewey, which is the only edition of that series that has excited me.

Smith strikes a great balance between love, tenderness, and fear: the secret of motherhood. She mixes family, nature, and daily life in with the big picture view, adds vivid imagery, and keeps us under her spell the whole way through. Best of all, for me, is the wallop of her closing lines. She nails them and makes me want to pause a moment to take in what she said before moving on to the next poem, often reading the entire poem again first. There’s a bit of playfulness and magical realism, too.

One thing I didn’t expect was the feeling that I was visiting my mother, who died almost 40 years ago. From “Good Bones,”

“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…”

I couldn’t wait to see what would come next. Hint: buy the book.

I also loved how Smith turned several of the endless questions from her young daughter into philosophical, imagery-rich poems. For example, “What is the past?”

“…The past is a tide that drags out
but won’t return to shore: even your question
has been carried off.”
(“Past”)

“How do leaves fall off the trees and
how did God build this car?”

“The tree stops needing the leaves, so it lets go,
and people built this car….
…On second thought, the leaves
must let go, or else the tree would keep them.”
“Leaves”)

[Kate Wassell · Rating 2 out of 5]

After seeing the poem ‘good bones’ (which I LOVE) circled around Instagram and Twitter, I expected to like this collection more than I did. The poem itself captures motherhood so well, the conflicting feeling of trying to sell a world that is both broken, filled with suffering, and beautiful. So many other poems in this collection tried to capture this idea and many of them just didn’t hit the mark with it - the metaphors repeat poem after poem but ultimately don’t have much meaning

I got very bored of the couplets used over and over in every poem, that had no use as couplets - it feel like the line breaks and structure of the poems were barely thought about at all. 80% of the time she either writes in non rhyming couplets that drift over one another for no reason, or one big stanza, which got pretty tiresome (although weirdly she stops doing this towards the end of the collection, which definitely makes everything way more readable) .

I do love the way Maggie Smith writes about motherhood, the things she tells her kids when she tries to explain the world to them, but to some extent the collection became too much about this- I kept thinking ‘who is this woman without her children’? Maybe that’s the point but I felt it was too on the nose about motherhood sometimes.

Overall there’s some really tender moments here and the poems do paint a really beautiful picture of the world. I just felt like the poems were ‘bare bones’ of what they could’ve been - shortened down and put in weird repetitive couplets when the ideas and metaphors could’ve been so much more .

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maggie Smith has written an unforgettable poetry book. Good Bones is the title of one of her poems in the book. Nearly a million people have read it, due to social media. It went viral and everyone from Facebook to Twitter related to this poem. It is a phenomenal poem that touches upon childhood and life. Smith's poetry is easy to read and provides you with an in-depth look into her poetic soul. She writes about her children, about the past, and the longing of another time and place. Maggie Smith's hometown is like another character in the book. The reader becomes familiar with the scenery of her hometown. She is reflective, introspective and wise in her ability to connect with you through her own personal experiences.
I would highly recommend this poetry book and read it again and again. That's what you do with great poetry. You never let it leave your side. I was lucky enough to get a signed copy of Good Bones, making this book even more cherishable.