Above Ground

A remarkable poetry collection with "inextinguishable generosity and abundant wisdom" (Monica Youn) from Clint Smith, the #1 New York Times bestselling and National Book Critics Circle award-winning author of How the Word Is Passed.

Clint Smith's vibrant and compelling new collection traverses the vast emotional terrain of fatherhood, and explores how becoming a parent has recalibrated his sense of the world. There are poems that interrogate the ways our lives are shaped by both personal lineages and historical institutions. There are poems that revel in the wonder of discovering the world anew through the eyes of your children, as they discover it for the first time. There are poems that meditate on what it means to raise a family in a world filled with constant social and political tumult. Above Ground wrestles with how we hold wonder and despair in the same hands, how we carry intimate moments of joy and a collective sense of mourning in the same body. Smith's lyrical, narrative poems bring the reader on a journey not only through the early years of his children's lives, but through the changing world in which they are growing up-through the changing world of which we are all a part.

Above Ground is a breathtaking collection that follows Smith's first award-winning book of poetry, Counting Descent.

Editorial Reviews

"I think there is an emergent theory, and maybe also a demand, when Clint Smith considers the brutalizing facts and language of war almost alongside a reverie about sprinkling sand on his baby's feet; when he mourns the long and brutal and ongoing history of American slavery almost alongside making French toast with the kids or dancing until the whole family falls down. When he makes us witness the most incomprehensibly awful (and daily) brutalities not only beside but almost in tandem with the most incomprehensibly tender (and daily) actions of care. It's a theory, and a demand, to which I think we must pay very close attention."―Ross Gay, author of Inciting Joy

"Clint Smith is a brilliant poet, one who knows ‘we are not all left / standing after the war has ended. Some of us have become ghosts,' who knows that ‘you come from the parachute that didn't open -- / and then did.'-and who finds words to sing and to mourn, and to see us for who we are. Here is a poet who offers wisdom that ‘our bodies have / always been inexpricable vessels of energy we can / not control,' and despite that (or perhaps because of it), also offers grace. This is a beautiful, vivid book, where ‘grandfather is a fist / full of embers' and a dance party becomes a life-giving ceremony, and Andromeda Galaxy, 2.5 million light years away, is a reason enough to spark an love note. Much to love in this poetry collection, lyric keeping us above the ground, rooted into our world, blessed to be alive, despite it all. Clint Smith is a marvelous poet."―Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic and Dancing in Odessa

"I'm so grateful that Clint Smith's poems remind us of our interdependence on each other-on chrysanthemums, jellyfish, plankton, to note just a few of his magnificent poetic negotiations-all while turning his wide and generous eyes to fatherhood. This book is an illumination I sorely needed of both the outdoors and the quotidian-a joyful embrace and legacy of bright language and poignant questions."―Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of World of Wonders

"Clint Smith's poems make palpable the soap-bubble thinness of borders-the contingent boundaries of love and loss, past and present, sanctuary and violence, ‘us' and ‘them.' With inextinguishable generosity and abundant wisdom, he shows us the linkages that both bind and divide us-as family, as community, as nation, as world: ‘The river that gives us water to drink is the same one that might wash us away.' I am so grateful for these luminous poems.
...

Readers Top Reviews

Sacha

5 stars There is so much to like about this compact but impactful collection! Smith's poems are so accessible, which is a prime reason why they'll be showing up on my syllabi immediately, but more importantly, they're so moving. Many of the entries are just the most charming gifts to his children, wife, and other family members. Smith has a knack for capturing both snapshots and entire personalities in small spaces, and I kept thinking about how wonderful it will be for his children, especially, to connect with these as adults (or even young adults). I also love the emotional and tonal variety here. There are very serious, somber poems ("Your National Anthem" really got me), and there are those that are more light-hearted and humorous, including but not limited to "Dance Party" and "Ode to the Double Stroller." There are also some fantastic time capsules (like "Zoom School with a Toddler"). Truly, there's something for everyone, and the plain language and conventional choices make Smith's work available and palatable to folks who might not necessarily be attracted to poetry collections as a general rule. I expected to enjoy these as an incoming fan of Smith's but was still surprised by how much I did. I can't wait to teach these.

V. Foster

In Above Ground, Clint Smith transforms the mundane moments of parenthood into moving reflections on family, race, and the current state of the world. I’m not sure how objective I can be in reviewing the collection: it feels like a personal gift in this year when I’ve struggled with the yawning gap between what I’m feeling as a first time parent and what I can communicate to other people. It often seems like there’s nothing to say about parenthood that hasn’t been said before, but Smith avoids cliche by playing with scale, juxtaposing the intimate and the immense. There are multiple poems in this collection about dinosaurs (in books, in bathtubs), odes to baby hiccups and the beauty of the baby swing, descriptions of kitchen dance parties and hotdog Halloween costumes. These entries share space with meditations on New Orleans after Katrina, on gun violence and military violence and the legacy of slavery. The existence of these poems next to each other makes clear the stakes of parenting in a world that can feel inherently dangerous. Smith’s style is quite narrative, and there isn’t as much experimentation with syntax or language as I’m accustomed to with poetry. As a result, the collection sometimes reads a little like a memoir with line breaks. I can see it appealing to my most poetry-skeptical students, who ask every year why poetry can’t just say what it means. Most readers will find something here that speaks to them, I think; I know that I’m leaving with a profound sense of gratitude for Smith’s efforts to put words to the everyday enormity of parenting.

Case Quarter

like ross gay, clint smith is a poet of found joy. smith charts his personal joys of fatherhood and knowledge of the awesome universe shared anew through the experiences of growing children. clint smith writes poems on how being the father of a child in the first throngs of language, on the brink of questioning and discovery forces one to relearn the world to answer questions about dinosaurs and what sound a giraffe makes. by the time his son is two, his wife is pregnant again and the boy is introduced to his sister in the womb through the sounds heard against his mom’s belly. in the wake of nikki giovanni, smith blends family histories from his own childhood occasionally with historical and contemporary issues as in his poem about a photo of george floyd and his daughter. a father of two prematurely born children, smith is witness in a hospital preemies’ ward to sufferings touching other parents and children and by extension all of us. he draws invisible lines of connections, fingering a globe, and with the philosophical chestnut, if a tree falls in the woods and no one’s there, does it make a sound, a sound he cannot hear any more than he can hear the sound a giraffe makes or the cries of baby not his own, smith shows us the preciousness of moments too important to let slip away. an awesome book, i thank netgalley and little, brown and company for an advanced reader’s copy.

Justine Johnson

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC! What a fantastic collection of poetry this is. Clint Smith manages to touch on topics ranging from the small joys of every day life (like double strollers or enjoying a quiet house after your kids go to sleep) to massive societal and systemic issues like police brutality, racism, gun control, and New Orleans in the wake of the hurricane. He captures so many emotions of parenthood, from nostalgia to awe, in a way that had me vigorously nodding in agreement many times. These will make you smile gently, furrow your brow in anger, and break your heart. I highlighted the crap out of this book because there were so many life-changing lines, but my favorites were "All at Once", "Trying to Light a Candle in the Wind", "In the Grocery Store You Are Wrapped Tightly onto My Chest", "Pangaea", "Here Nor There", "For Your First Birthday", "Cartography", "Coming Home", "Deceit", and "Punctuation".

Robin

This is a beautiful book, and a wonderful gift for fathers and people who care about others and the world.