| Contents |
All at once -- Waiting on a heartbeat -- FaceTime -- Passage -- "It's all in your head" -- Trying to light a candle in the wind -- When people say "we have made it through worse before" -- By chance -- In the grocery store you are wrapped tightly onto my chest -- Ode to the electric baby swing -- Ode to the infant hiccup -- Ode to the first smile -- Nociception -- Your national anthem -- For Willie Francis, the first known person to survive an execution by electric chair, 1946 -- Roots -- Across generations -- The drone -- Pangaea -- The New York Times reports that 200 civilians have just been killed by U.S. military air strikes -- The great escape -- Nomenclature -- This is an incomprehensive list of all the reasons I know I married the right person -- Lines in the sand -- And the world keeps spinning -- Tree rings -- Here nor there -- At the Superdome after the storm has passed -- It is Halloween night and you are dressed as a hot dog -- When we took you to the beach for the first time -- Ode to the bear hug -- For your first birthday -- When we told you another baby was coming -- Legacy -- Counting descent II -- Where are they now? -- I am looking at a photo -- The first time I saw my grandfather cry -- Coming home -- Cartography -- After the storm they attempted to identify the bodies -- For the doctor's records -- Deceit -- Expedience -- For the doctor's records, follow-up -- We see another school shooting on the news -- The gun -- This year was the first year I could not remember your voice -- Ode to the double stroller -- Gold stars -- Zoom school with a toddler -- In the ocean there is a small jellyfish -- Ossicones -- You ask me what sounds a giraffe makes -- Yesterday afternoon I took you to the park -- The most remarkable thing about dinosaurs -- Ars poetica -- Above ground -- Tradition -- What I've learned -- Dance party -- The Andromeda galaxy is the closest galaxy to our Milky Way -- Alarm -- Prehistoric questions -- Punctuation -- Univers(al) -- Ode to bedtime -- Ode to those first fifteen minutes after the kids are finally asleep -- When standing in a cabin at the Whitney Plantation -- Look at that pond. |
| Abstract |
"The number one New York Times bestselling author, intellectual, and spoken word poet Clint Smith gives his devoted readers a collection of poetry straight from the heart. It is a meditation on the country he studies through the lens of all he has learned from fatherhood. The poems are manifestations of Smith's wisdom and latest observations, starting with the precarious birth of his son, to the current political and social state of the country, to childhood memories, and back again. Smith traverses the periods of his life from four different cities and the process pf realizing what it means to build a life that orbits around his family. Amid all of it, he has watched as the country has been forced to confront the ugliest manifestations of itself, and has thought about what it means to raise children amid the backdrop of political tumult. Smith is a poet who uses the form to interrogate his own autobiography and the state of the country today, affording those who prefer reading poetry a shot of news, and those who normally seek out nonfiction, some lyrical beauty"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (page 107). |
| Issued in other form | Electronic version: Smith, Clint, 1988- Above ground. New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2023 9780316702584 |
| Genre/form | Poetry. |
| Genre/form | poetry. |
| Genre/form | Poetry |
| Genre/form | Poésie. |
| LCCN | 2022943484 |
| ISBN | 9780316543033 |
| ISBN | 0316543039 (hardcover) |
| ISBN | (ebook) |
