The Body's Question

by Tracy K. Smith, Kevin Young (Compiler)

You are pure appetite. I am pure
Appetite. You are a phantom
In that far-off city where daylight
Climbs cathedral walls, stone by stolen stone.
--from "Self-Portrait as the Letter Y"



Confronting loss, historical intersections with race and family, and the threshold between childhood and adulthood, Smith gathers courage and direction from the many disparate selves encountered in these poems, until, as she writes, "I was anyone I wanted to be."

Genres: Poetry, African American, Black Literature, Female Authors, Nonfiction, Literary Fiction, Audiobook

72 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2003

About the author

Tracy K. Smith is the author of Wade in the Water; Life on Mars, winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Duende, winner of the James Laughlin Award; and The Body’s Question, winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. 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. From 2017 to 2019, Smith served as Poet Laureate of the United States. She teaches at Princeton University.

Reviews

[Brina]

Debut collection of poetry in 2002 by Tracy K Smith, current poet laureate of the United States. Even with this early writing of hers, one could sense that she was destined for poetry stardom. Luscious words, straddling two cultures, thought provoking prose of time and place. I have now read all of her poetry collections and will either have to wait impatiently for the next one or go back and read all of her other work. Tracy K Smith is the poet I am most drawn to, and one of few authors that I maintain could write a cereal box and I would still read it. Until next time, I look forward to all of Smith’s future writing.

4 + stars

[Jeff]

I'm just gonna quote stuff.

I really liked the first poem, "Something Like Dying, Maybe."

But section I was only mostly to my liking with the exception of the last half of "Gospel: Miguel (El Lobito)"

Whoever won
Would go into the woods
And take whatever grew.

That night, we sat on the hill
Watching the fires burn.
They'll still be slaves,

He said. Nothing
That means anything
Has changed

By far my favorite is section I of "Drought"

The hydrangea begins as a small, bright world.
Mother buries rusty nails, and the flowers
Weep blue and pink. I am alone in the garden,
And like all else that is living, I lean into the sun.

Each bouquet will cringe and die in time
While the dry earth watches. It is ugly,
And the earth is ugly to allow it. Still, the petals
Curl and drop. Mother calls it an exquisite waste,

But there is no choice. I learn how:
Before letting go, open yourself completely.
Wait. When the heavens fail to answer,
Curse the heavens. Wither and bend.

(hubris's aside: Dear Ms Smith, i want you to change "the heavens fail" to "the sky fails")


From "A Hunger So Honed":

Free in a way that made me ashamed for our flesh—

and

There were two that faced us a moment
The way deer will in their Greek perfection.

All five ?subpoems? that make up "Joy" but especially the fifth:

These logs, hacked so sloppily
Their blonde grains resemble overdone poultry,
Are too thick to catch.

I crumple paper to encourage the flame,
And for a brief moment everything is lit.

But the logs haven't caught,
Just seem to smolder and shrink
As the heat works its way to their center.

Getting to what I want
Will be slow going and mostly smoke.

Years ago during a storm,
I knelt before the open side
Of a blue and white miniature house,

Moving the dolls from room to room
While you added kindling to the fire.

It is true that death resists the present tense.
But memory does death one better. Ignores the future.
We sat in that room until the wood was spent.

We never left the room.
The wood was never spent

From "Self-Portrait as the Letter Y":

She will never be free
Because she is afraid. He

Will never be free
Because he has always

Been free.

From "Night Letters":

... days glide by
Like southward birds

and

All the words for reason
Lie heaped at the back of a closet
I will not open
Until the sun has crossed my window
For the last time without waking you.

and

I listen, knowing
You are so far away I must be
Inside you, knowing the night is a great,
Soft, whispering, steady thing
Going on in and around you
And that I am in it.

From "What Fear Is":

Voices that are not yours
Lining up to touch me
While I pray.

Ignoring the actual last poem, the final lines, from "Shadow Poem":

You are not the only one
Alive like that

Also i love the painting used on the cover.

[Lauren]

Smith's debut collection from 2003 is so strong - loved seeing the early stages here in this collection.

[Sarah]

Meh . . . a couple good lines and images, but mostly Contemporary Poetry. Lots of poems that end with a single image (usually a capital-M Metaphor) trying to perfectly wrap things up by not appearing to be a definite ending. Sometimes they work, but mostly I just notice how she's trying. Maybe Duende is better.

[Nakarem]

2.5 stars
Maybe I listened to it at the wrong time because I cannot pinpoint any actual things I dislike about these poems but they also barely hit me so I'm not sure I want to give the 3 stars I decided on

[Ericka Clou]

Not my favorite collection by Tracy K Smith (that's Life on Mars) but it's hard to go wrong with Smith. This one is a bit Hispanic (which I loved) and a bit angsty (which interests me less).

[Micah Horton hallett]

Tracy K. Smith. Tracy K. Smith. Tracy K. f*cking Smith. She makes me want to make words again, but infects me with her language and lineation so that I am not sure where my work begins and where my ineffectual echo of her ends. She makes me want to weep, she makes me weep- and laugh and nod and raise my fist. She has FLOW, like the best of performance poets- she has wisdom and makes pictures in my head that ebb and flow and I need her to release another book now. Please.

[James Tierney]

So redolent of speech that it's too perfect for speaking. Is that one of poetry's definitions?

[Anne]

Studded with brilliant imagery.

[Kristin]

A strong debut.

[birdmaddgirl]

3.5

[Hope]

sometimes I don’t understand poetry & other times it just wrecks me!!!!

[Sam]

4.5 — astonishing, can’t believe it was her debut

[Ana Hein]

3.5 stars

[LULU]

I liked it a lot better on my second read through. Cheers to grief and sex and dancing and cities and things that are named by Adam himself.

[Eliana]

Adding this to my list of favorite poetry collections of all time, thank you VERY much.

[Megan]

Tracy K. Smith was one of the poets I liked the most from what we studied in undergrad and I liked this so much; it made me miss being in classes.

[tortoise dreams]

The first book of poems by the Poet Laureate of the United States.

Poetry Review: The Body's Question is an amazing first book, and reassuring in that contemporary American poets are still writing poetry this wonderful. Tracy K. Smith creates within the great tradition of lyric poetry, but her poems are fresh, individual, and modern (yet retro enough to capitalize every line). Too many poets today write poetry so opaque that it couldn't be deciphered by a CIA analyst. Or write poems so accessible there's little substance or meaning, like shower thoughts, like tumblr poetry. Smith writes real poetry (sorry, but true). She's a Romantic. Her poems can be timeless ("A Hunger So Honed") or as immediate and pointed as breaking news: "That's why women/Wear worry and cover their heads, let their words/Drop like shot birds from the higher windows./Every night here one of us is sliced open."

At heart, Smith describes a young woman seeing and enjoying what life has to offer, with her memories never too far from the surface. She has wonderful lines: "I woke, touching ground gently/Like a parachutist tangled in low branches." or "Lying beside you was like/Dangling a leg/Over the edge/Of a drifting boat." or "I have always been this beautiful/and this dead." Appropriately, the book begins with a "Serenade" and ends with a "Prayer." The word "hunger" is a drumbeat throughout the pages, covering everything from desire to ambition to need. The Body's Question includes love poems (many), memory poems, travel poems, confessional poems. The ghosts of the Spanish poets drift through. There's metaphor if you like that, but if you don't you can just kick back and enjoy the pyrotechnic imagery. The amount of work that went into these poems is astonishing. She constructs brilliant first and last lines, and then fills the in-between with revelatory pictures. It's not just that Smith is talented, clever and intelligent, but she knows, she knows what she's doing:

Success must hurt. Must yield sharp evidence.
I'll have to lie to get it.
Like love.

Don't let Kevin Young's introduction turn you off, if it does; poets writing about poets can be something of a swamp (I'm currently reading his new book, Brown). If you want an example of the best of contemporary poetry, The Body's Question is it. [4★]

[Mely]

Not the flame, but what it promised,
Surrender. To be quenched of danger.
I torched toothpicks to watch them
Curl around themselves like living things,
Panicked and aglow. I would wake,
Sheets wrinked and damp, and rise
From that print of myself,
From that sleep-slack dummy self.
Make me light.

No one missed my shadow
Moving behind the house, so I led it
To the dry creek-bed and laid it down
Among thistledown, nettle,
Things that hate water as I hate
That weak, ash-dark self.
I stood above it,
A silent wicked thing that would not beg.
I crouched, and it curled before me.
I rose, and it stretched itself, toying.

And the brambles whispered.
And my hands in their mischief.

A spasm, a spark, a sweet murmuring flame
That swallowed the creek-bed and spread,
Mimicking water. A gorgeous traffic
Flickering with light, as God is light.
I led my shadow there and laid it down.
And my shadow rose and entered me.
And on the third day, it began to speak,
Naming me.

[Jason]

I would give this book 6 stars if I could, or 600. I read our Poet Laureate's books in reverse order, Life on Mars when it first came out, and only got to Duende and this recently. This might be my favorite. The voice is so beguiling, by turns colloquial and sophisticated, with so many arresting images and metaphors.

[LYS.]

I wanted a different kind of pain. For it to come
From inside and want out

And to rip its way there, howling that fat, flat way
Life does.
—“Betty Blue,” pages 33-34

actually 3.75 stars rounded up to 4!

i’ve read a couple of smith’s poems before that have punched me in the face but never got a chance to pick up a poetry book by her, so i’m starting with her debut! THE BODY’S QUESTION is not as explosive as the poems i’ve read from her; they’re much more personal in tone, the speaker switching from anyone she wants. reading it is akin to a muggy late night block party in the city, especially with the first section (it’s divided into four), before it shifts to a more intimate setting—the bedroom, the body, the self. the inclusion of mexican culture was an interesting turn, but it does feel out of place since it’s centered more on the first part than the rest. though, a few lines in “Niña Fantasma” did enchant me: “I ask him to say it again. Oiste la lluvia? / For a rain so sudden it is love, / Hunger in a foreign language.” how gorgeous! i do love the thought process being including a foreign language while talking about the body and hunger. it makes for a fascinating comparison imo.

some favorites for me are: “Gospel: Jesús,” “Betty Blue,” and “Joy” (which has the line that titles the poetry book—“I know you are deciding / That the body’s a question: / What do you believe in?”).

as a whole, it’s a solid debut with a couple of standouts. there’s a raw quality to smith’s writing in here that’s probably, over the course of decades, been honed into something tight and sharp, but right now i feel less emotionally invested and more interested by the craft choices than anything. like, her images are sound! the interplay amongst light and shadow and god!!! okay!!! but more often than not i was taken with few lines out of the whole poem than the whole poem as its own work. anyway, that’s all i have to say.

love n light, guys!

[Ellice]

It’s always interesting (and a little bit agonizing) to go back and read the early work of an author you first encounter at the height of their powers. Will their early work be any good? In the case of Tracy K. Smith, one of my favorite poets, the answer is yes. This volume, her first, was selected by Kevin Young as the winner of the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, and it is deserving of that honor. Though I didn’t love it as much as her more mature work, the poems are good of their own accord, and show hints of the brilliance on display in Smith’s later books.

I read this book of poetry as part of the 2026 Sealey Challenge, so here’s some extra info and stats:

Number of pages: 90
Number of poems: 31
Minutes of reading time: 72
Number of poems that made me smile/laugh: n/a
Number of poems that made me cry: n/a
Number of quotes saved: 23
Favorite quote (tie):

When I saw the hills, how they resembled
The bodies of our women, I knew this country
Never stopped being our country.

---

The hydrangea begins as a small, bright world.
Mother buries rusty nails, and the flowers
Weep blue and pink. I am alone in the garden,
And like all else that is living, I lean into the sun.

Favorite poem (tie): “Joy” and “Bright”
Other favorites: “Gospel: Miguel (el Lobito),” “Gospel: Juan,” “Gospel: Alejandro (el Monstruo),” “Drought,” “Appetite,” “A Hunger So Honed,” “Wintering,” “Prayer”

[Markus]

Drought

Not the flame, but what it promised,
Surrender. To be quenched of danger.
I torched toothpicks to watch them
Curl around themselves like living things,
Panicked and aglow. I would wake,
Sheets wrinkled and damp, and rise
From that print of myself,
From that sleep-slack dummy self.
Make me light.

No one missed my shadow
Moving behind the house, so I led it
To the dry creek-bed and laid it down
Among thistledown, nettle,
Things that hate water as I hate
That weak, ash-dark self.
I stood above it,
A silent wicked thing that would not beg.
I crouched, and it curled before me.
I rose, and it stretched itself, toying.

And the brambles whispered.
And my hands in their mischief.

A spasm, a spark, a sweet murmuring flame
That swallowed the creek-bed and spread,
Mimicking water. A gorgeous traffic
Flickering with light, as God is light.
I led my shadow there and laid it down.
And my shadow rose and entered me.
And on the third day, it began to speak,
Naming me.

[Emily Green]

The Body’s Question, winner of the Cave Canem prize, is Tracy K. Smith’s first book of poetry. Kevin Young’s introduction is quite brilliant and points out a lot what is beautiful about the book. The metaphors in the book are not as explosively surprising as what I prefer, but there is a lot to admire in this book.

Her control of the line is pretty genius. Take “Self Portrait as the Letter Y:”
Was kind of a rebel then.
Took two cars. Took
Bad advice. Watched people’s
Asses. Sniffed their heads.

I know, right? The book is emotionally intense, but far from melodramatic. A great range of voices throughout the poems. First work from a great talent.

[Maik Arnold]

Tracy K. Smith's beautifully crafted debut collection lets the reader enter a new realm. The language is simplistic (meaning easily to follow) but still colloquial and sophisticated. It's rich in metaphors and images. All words possess great power and help to expand our language about the body as much more than a place of feelings, memories, experiences, dreams, etc. With other words, the reader can very much feel the moments that were put into each imaginary, such as in Five dreams of offspring. Her poems are fresh, individual, and modern. I very much recommend this collection and the audiobook (narrated by the author) to anyone who wants to enhance its 'body language'.

[Courtney Ferriter]

** 3.5 stars **

The through line in Smith's debut poetry collection is the needs of the body - hunger, thirst, sexual desire, closeness with others. I liked some of the poems here very much: Smith's "Gospel" poems, "Appetite," "Joy," "Bright," and "Prayer" were my favorites. Others felt somewhat unfinished or less fully formed, but overall still a solid collection. It's not as structurally or linguistically experimental as I tend to prefer in contemporary poetry, but a thought-provoking volume nevertheless. Would recommend if you like poetry and/or works by contemporary African American writers.

[Riley Spellman]

“You are pure appetite. I am pure
Appetite. You are a phantom
In that far-off city where daylight
Climbs cathedral walls, stone by stolen stone.
I am invisible here, like I like it.

The language you taught me rolls
From your mouth into mine
The ways kids will pass smoke
Between them. You feed it to me
Until my heart grows fat. I feed you
Tiny black eggs. I feed you
My very own soft truth. We believe.
We stay up talking all kinds of shit.” (“Self-Portrait As the Letter Y”)

I felt really nostalgic during this collection, especially towards the end. It just inspires a lot of emotion, and I liked it a lot.

[Cornelio]

Her debut collection, already you see the voice that I’ve come to love, that in itself is music, while crafting these evocative scenes that make you face your own, as the best art does.

“You are looking too
In that language you exhale
Like globes of air
That rise and break
On the surface of what is real.
I love you. These are not
The words any more
Than that hidden skin,
Dark from childhood
In a place too beautiful
To exist, is you.
But I reach for it
And we are closer.”

—excerpt from “The Machinery of Evening”

[R.C.]

I'd say this is 2.5 stars, partway between "it was OK" and "I liked it". Smith's word-smithing is great, but often I felt like I loved certain lines but that the entire poem lacked a coherent center. She'd lose me about halfway through, I'd reread a line and love it, then try to reread the whole poem and get lost in the same way again. Perhaps subsequent readings will help.

[Scott]

As with _Life on Mars_, I really wanted to like this book of poetry more. I love Smith’s use of language. While there were a few poems I loved (such as “Mangoes” and “Appetite”), so many of the poems lack enough context or concreteness for me to make sense of them. They seem to be written to herself or to a specific person, not the general reader.