The author, US Poet Laureate in 2017/2018, reads her poems: What a treat!  She speaks softly and precisely as if to one of her children.  About half the poems are about family and children. The other half are historical re-imaginings. 

One poem, Watershed, is about Dupont and its relationship to the people in a small Michigan town. One plant employee sold the company land and then the company proceeded to illegally dump per fluoro-octinoic acid (PFOA)waste to this land. “The white ash trees shedding their leaves.”  “Dead black calf in snow with blue chemical eye.” Children of plant workers had eye problems.  PFOA from Scotchguard was supposed to be incinerated, not discharged to fields or pits or the Ohio River.

And from God’s eye view: no signs of mankind but living things more alive than on earth. “Experiencing the luminuous warm water was a connection to the eternal….”

A PBS interview with Smith: Tracy Smith Interview