 |
| Photo courtesy Roger Kirby |
Tracy K. Smith won the Pulitzer Prize for her book of poems, Life on Mars, from which I’ve
selected this week’s poem, which presents a payday in the way many of us at
some time have experienced it. The poet lives in Brooklyn ,
New York
The Good Life
When some people talk about money
They speak as if it were a mysterious lover
Who went out to buy milk and never
Came back, and it makes me nostalgic
For the years I lived on coffee and bread,
Hungry all the time, walking to work on payday
Like a woman journeying for water
From a village without a well, then living
One or two nights like everyone else
On roast chicken and red wine.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine.
It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2011 by Tracy K. Smith from her most recent
book of poems, Life on Mars, Graywolf Press, 2011. Poem reprinted by
permission of Tracy K. Smith and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2013
by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as
United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006.
