This was beautiful.

I mean, she's the poet laureate for a reason. These are beautiful poems. I particularly enjoyed the erasure poems of black civil war soldiers seeking compensation. On a craft level, these poems are impeccable. They didn't have the emotional resonance I often look for in poetry but I know brilliance when I read it and this book is brilliant.

Like loveFrom a lifetime ago, and mudA dog has tracked across the floor.This collection is blessed with myriad guises, a number of deft approaches, possibly designed to defy glib classification. Xenophobia and injustice are depicted from cover to cover but by different means. The use of actual letters from black Civil War veterans was especially effective. The insertion of the subaltern into the bureaucratic. Our arsenal of democracy appears to be depleted, our foundational myths have been found...

Loved this collection of poems, especially those of the second section. The erasure poem, Declaration, is immense, as is 'I Will Tell You The Truth About This, I Will Tell You All About It,' in which Smith uses sources from letters written by former slaves + veterans of the US Army.

“You want a poem to unsettle something." ◾Tracy K. SmithWade in the Water: Poems was my third collection by Smith, the current Poet Laureate of the United States. While I liked her earlier works of Duende and Life on Mars, this new collection is my favorite of her work.Smith uses multiple poetic and dramatic styles - erasure poems gathered from slave correspondence in the Civil War (the whole stunning 'Unwritten' series), source materials of the Declaration of Independence ('Declaration'), and l...

This is my first book of poetry based on history regarding opression and war times.The dates and the ways how people got ill-treated are portrayed well.Some poems need to be reread; theThe poems are indeed very powerful.Kudos👍

Read Harder 2020 Challenge: An audiobook of poetryI was a little skeptical of this challenge. Even though about 80% of my reading is done through audiobooks nowadays, I love to physically read poetry. I love to see the line breaks and such, and the placement of words in a poem can have as much meaning as the actual words. That being said, I did enjoy listening to this collection of poetry. Tracy K. Smith narrates the audiobook, and this allows the listener to get a sense of how the writer wanted...

With a reading plan in place to complete a number of fun and rewarding challenges, 2018 looked bright. The year actually got off to a great start and then real life got in the way. This year is being devoted to family celebrations and just being with family so reading is going to be at a premium. I opted out of all of my challenges, and culled my to read pile down to just those books that I am genuinely interested in or are what I called award winning game changers. One of these game changers is...

Current poet laureate of the United States, Tracy K. Smith's poems are food for the soul for 2018 in our current political climate. Her erasure poems are so beautiful.

I don’t rate poetry because I’m a noob and don’t get it.

On the whole I think now that Smith's style of poetry (lots of couplets?) doesn't do much for me. The found poems, which really seem to tell a story (like "Watershed" and "I Will Tell You the Truth About This, I Will Tell You All About It"), worked best for me and in particular I really enjoyed "Watershed". I recognized it from the article it's based on, "The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare" (which was a fascinating read).

Reflecting a range of poetic styles, including found poems and poems drawn from historical sources arranged to bring out the poetry of our lives, this volume by Tracy K. Smith deserves to be read aloud in families, groups of friends, congregations, and other communities.

Find this and other Reviews at In Tori LexThese poems are reflect how minorities in America have grappled with racism. Each piece pulls at your senses and challenges you to think more deeply about the world around you. The history of how black people survived slavery and reconstruction is often overlooked. In the poem "Unwritten" the use of real correspondence of African Americans while fighting in the Civil War and surviving after, let's us glimpse into the deep cavern of history that has not b...

I'm relatively new to reading contemporary poetry, and am still learning what works for me personally, and what doesn't. I spent a long time reading and re-reading the poems from this collection, hoping it would eventually click, but something about it felt removed, closed off, and I can't say it resonated with me much overall. There are a lot of different and interesting themes and topics, but I couldn't help feeling I'd prefer to read them in a different form. The few poems that I liked more w...

It's tough when the bottom of the book's cover reads "By the Poet Laureate of the United States" (not that I wouldn't mind such baggage). Tough to live up to the expectations. And Tracy K. Smith doesn't. Not if you're looking for stop-you-in-your-tracks poems that make you want to reread just to hear the pleasant little jingle again. I've read poetry like that, and no, not a lot of that here.The best part is Smith's erasure poetry. There's a brilliant section that must've taken a lot of work. Sm...

Tracy K. Smith is the United States Poet Laureate. Wade in the Water is a collection of powerful poems about race, both historically, in our history of slavery specifically during the Civil War (and not only slavery but the mistreatment of the black Union soldiers) along with current examples of violence and hatred toward that which is "othered" in this country (as in African-American, Latinx, and Muslims).Smith writes in a fascinating variety of styles, from lyrical poems to ghazels to erasure

Some excellent poetry by the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Some of her poetry was aligned to narrow parts of history and African American experience to move me deeply, but Ms. Smith is an amazingly creative artist.

THE WORLD IS YOUR BEAUTIFUL YOUNGER SISTERSeeing her as seldom as you do, it doesn’t change,The ire, the shame, the fists you must rememberTo smooth flat just thinking what they did,What they promised, then took—those menWho offered to pay, to keep, the clan of themLording it over the others like high school boysAnd their kid brothers. Men with interests to protect,And mute marble wives. Men who let herBeam into their faces, watching her shoulders rise,Her astonishing new breasts, making her bel...

A few sharp, resonant images aside, this pretty much left me cold. Most of these poems read like vertically-stacked prose.

Broken into three parts; this stunning collection of poetry is lyrical and deep in intensity. From motherhood to slavery to contemplation each poem sucks the reader in and deserves to be savored. Tracey K. Smith is master of contemplation and care and this slim volume of poetry conveys deep meanings. Fans of poetry will eat this up and those new to prose will find themselves in love with the written word anew.