Back to winners
- Publisher
- Graywolf Press
- Length
- ≈ 75 pages
- Reading time
- 2–3 hours
- ISBN
- 1555975844
Reading time assumes 30–40 pages per hour; edition and reading pace affect this estimate. Edition source
What is this book about?
Life on Mars is a poetry collection written as an elegy for Tracy K. Smith’s father, a scientist who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope and who died in 2008. An awareness of death runs through the book, and Smith thinks about her father on a galactic scale. Critics have also read it as a book about race.
Source: Life on Mars (poetry collection)
Similar award-winning books
Selected from shared categories, regions, award history, and reading profiles.
3 Sections
by Vijay Seshadri
Also recognised in poetry.
Faithful and Virtuous Night
by Louise Glück
Also recognised in poetry.
Incarnadine
by Mary Szybist
Also recognised in poetry.
Find your next favourite
Most viewed books
The books catching readers’ attention over the last seven days.
Reader comments
Loading comments…