This will undoubtedly be one of my top reads for the year. If you're afraid of poetry, do not let this book scare you. It is incredible and it is accessible and it is beautiful and heartbreaking. There are poems that will make you laugh (so many odes to lovely and funny tiny moments of parenting with heavy emphasis on cereal crumbs), there are some that will make you cry happy tears, and there are some that will make you cry scared tears- but throughout all of these emotions Clint Smith weaves threads of joy and hope and I just wanted to swallow this entire book whole and stitch it to my heart.

Of particular resonance to me (with a huge disclaimer that I am a white woman raising a white son and we do not have to contend with the realities that Smith and his children do) Smith nails the feelings of trying to raise a child in a society that is hell bent on sucking:

"But some days, I worry / that we are welcoming you into the flames / of a world that is burning. / Some days, I am afraid that I am / more kindling than water."

"I fear everything I cannot control / and know that I control nothing. / I am standing in a thunderstorm / attempting to shield you from / every jagged slice of yellow sky. / I am trying to inhale all the smoke / from this burning world while / asking you to hold your breath.

Smith tackles some very heavy topics- the failures that led to the catastrophic aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina, gun violence, racism, the arbitrariness of most things and the dumb luck that any of us land where we land ("...you come from a history that is arbitrary / and cloaked in luck—you come from a land- / mine that was two feet to the left— /you come from children who shared their bread when they didn’t have / to. You come from the parachute that didn’t open then did."), the stupidity of borders and war ("the drone renders itself celestial the drone scoffs at / sovereignty the drone asks what is a border if you can fly / right over it?")- but then he inserts moments of wonder such as dancing in the cereal aisle with an infant strapped to his chest. I probably highlighted more things than I left alone, there is just so much to love and learn in this book.

Anyway, loved the book if that wasn't clear, and I am so excited to keep going to back to it again and again.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy, I very happily preodered this book for myself and a friend after reading and encourage everyone to do the same!

Thank you, Little, Brown & Co. and NetGalley. I’m happy to have read this; I’ve followed Clint Smith III’s work since I first heard him several years ago on DeRay McKesson’s podcast, Pod Save the People . Smith once read his poem, When People Say We’ve Made It Through Worse Before, on the podcast. It’s an absolutely beautiful and timely poem (and it’s included in this volume).

Most of the poems in this lovely collection are about family, and especially impending and early fatherhood; based on my previous knowledge of Dr. Smith, I assume them to be autobiographical. If I’m correct, the Smith children are very lucky.

The movement between the deeply personal and the questions of society is impressive, and the specificity of imagery and lines, of how layers of story come through to the surface makes for a meaningful experience of reading and discovery.

A lovely collection of mostly domestic poems following Smith's new life as a father and husband. There are a few of-the-moment political poems as well but the common theme is the expansion of life brought my raising children nowadays. I particularly like how the reading material that informs his children's lives shows up in his own reflections. Highly recommended reading

How the Word is Passed is one of the best books I’ve ever read, so I was in, no questions asked, for whatever Clint Smith published next. A book of poetry? Not my usual thing, but I’m in.

This poetry collection is very much driven by new fatherhood. The way Kate Baer spoke to mothers across America, this collection I think will speak so much to parents. There’s a poem that’s an ode to the electric baby swing! There’s also joy and wonder, the eponymous poem Above Ground is marveling at cicadas and the changing world with his children. There’s also the feeling of generations - Smith reflects on his grandparents, his wife’s mother, his father - what they went through, what they left in us, and how we go forward. The one about how his father made a recipe and he’s trying to recreate it was one of my favorites. It’s really a lovely collection that will speak to all parents. But it’s not just parenthood, there’s also poems about his home New Orleans and the storm and loss. One poem is about the Superdome. It’s all great and I enjoyed it a great deal. I’m just sad now that I have to wait for his next book 😭

Thank you NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Instagram.Com/encyclopedia_britanika

Fatherhood has made Clint Smith an even better poet. In this collection, he reflects on legacy, love, home, and the current political moment with humor and grace. There’s fear too, because everyone’s struggling with fear in an increasingly hostile world. However, what struck me the most was the amount of joy and hope he has for his family. There’s love pouring from these pages. Even if you don’t typically read poetry, there’s an accessibility to Smith’s style. Definitely recommend.

What a treasure! Read in one sitting, this poetry collection took me from the highs of wide eyed smiles to the pits of mournful tears and then back out again to the flight of belly laughs in a matter of minutes. What words to remind you of marveling at all that exists above ground in this life.

As an educator, I couldn’t help but think about the curriculum connections of every poem in this collection which is rare for me to say for a complete collection. Can’t wait to see the ways this shows up for readers of different generations in the future.

Grateful to Netgalley & Little, Brown and Company for access to this before it drops end of March 2023. I rarely pre-order hard copies, but immediately did so after finishing in hopes of giving to people in my own life who inspire joy, love, & self-reflection.

I absolutely loved this book of poetry! Clint Smith's previous book, How the Word is Passed, was my first introduction into his sharply observed, accessible writing style. Those same qualities are present in his poetry as well. Readers who do not normally find poetry for them will discover in this book experiences of fatherhood--beginning with the first heartbeat--and other family members--from grandparents to spouse--that are so real in their essence that you almost forget you're reading poetry. You're simply there.

Some of my favorites of these include "Ode to the Electric Baby Swing," "It Is Halloween Night and You Are Dressed as a Hot Dog," and most especially, "Tradition." Other poems, like "Cartography," look at places and their meaning, turning around what is known to show what is underneath. Violence through war, natural disaster, and the heavy experience of race are also given moving language. I kept thinking that"Ars Poetica" would make such a poignant picture book adaptation (and I'd warmly suggest "Tradition" again for this honor as well).

Overall this is a highly recommended collection of poetry that would also make an excellent Father's Day gift.

I just read this in one sitting; it was beautiful, and powerful, and I would definitely recommend it.

The poems in this collection are about so many things, but more than anything they're about parenthood--and all the fears and joys that come along with it.

Thank you to Little, Brown and Company and Netgalley for the chance to read and review this ARC.

Absolutely amazing! Wow! So beautiful! I can’t wait to own this book and buy copies of this as gifts to my friends that have small children.

I'm rating this on the basis of what (IMO) are the best poems, because the best poems are extraordinary and I hate to see them weighed down, as it were, by the weaker ones.

Should I get those out of the way first? Sure. When Smith is writing about his children, his unambivalent love seems to get in the way of the poem: he'll keep going a couple of lines too far and end with a neat wrap-up, flat and literal. "Above Ground," for instance, an otherwise closely observed poem about his son and daughter's first encounter with cicadas ("their exoskeletons ornament the bark like golden ghosts") ends with the children collecting cicadas in buckets as if they were treasure -- so far so good, but then: "Maybe treasure is in what dies almost / as quickly as it rises from the earth. / Maybe treasure is anything that reminds you / what a miracle it is to be alive." Crash and burn, straight into the language of motivational posters.

This isn't to say that all the poems about his fatherhood fall apart like that one, not by any means. Some, like "Zoom School with a Toddler," are funny while also connected in an unspoken way with a larger context of tragedy (because why is the toddler going to school on Zoom? we all know the answer to that one; the poem doesn't need to make it explicit). Some are just straight-up hilarious, like the prose poem "It Is Halloween Night and You Are Dressed as a Hot Dog": "Why we have chosen to bundle you into a costume of cured meat I do not know. But your mother is dressed as a pickle and I am dressed as a bottle of ketchup and together we make a family of ballpark delicacies." That one's worthy of Ogden Nash, if Ogden Nash had eschewed rhyme.

But the poems that made me gasp are on another plane altogether -- "Nomenclature" and "Punctuation," for instance, and others that draw more directly on the history of African Americans and other large directly political themes. These are exactly the kinds of subjects that almost no one manages to write poetry about minus platitude, but Clint Smith scarcely ever falls into that trap. In fact gun violence is the matter of the poem that struck me most powerfully, "The Gun," in which the gun's role is reversed with that of the children terrorized in a school shooting: "the gun heard the first shot the gun thought it was a bursting pipe the gun heard the second shot and the third and the fourth the gun realized this was not a pipe ..." and on until my heart shook.

And here's irony for you: I googled "the gun" and "Clint Smith" in hopes that the poem was available online so I could link to it -- but what do you know, every single hit on the first page is about some gun, ah, aficionado named ... Clint Smith.

What a stunning collection of poetry and an incredibly powerful rumination on lineage, family, and legacy. There were poems in here that made me tear up, others that made me smile, and quite a few that made me feel everything else in between. Clint Smith has a remarkable gift; I hope everyone takes the time to see what he has in store.

And for folks who are maybe a little newer to the poetry scene, this collection is an excellent starting point. Its contents are hard-hitting but easy to understand, and I loved the accessibility of it.

I knew this would be such a moving book of poetry and prose - Clint Smith truly never disappoints. I didn't expect the poems to be so focused on fatherhood but I loved it. They were incredibly moving and made me think, and of course written beautifully. I have no doubt this will be a hit once it's officially out in the world and so many people are going to benefit from this beautiful collection! Thank you so much for the advanced copy.

I wanted to enjoy this one but I found the plot, story, and characterizations hard to follow and not really resonate the best for me at times.

I’ve been a fan of Clint Smith’s poetry ever since I first discovered “The Danger of Silence.”

Counting Descent has some of the most powerful books I’ve ever read, so I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a copy of his newest collection of poems, Above Ground.

Many of these poems focus on Smith’s journey of being a father to two young children. This collection felt almost like reading a personal letter that he’ll one day give to his son and daughter, and every word made me feel like I was being gifted a peek into his life. Smith has a gift when it comes to words and it’s clear that he made every word, letter, and comma count when it came to Above Ground.

While most of these poems do focus on being a father, Smith also reflects on the state of the world and his worried for the future society his children will inherit.

It’s definitely a different tone from Counting Descent, but still w must read for fans of Clint Smith.

Clint Smith never misses. This book brings us into his home and provides a deep and tender glimpse into family and community which for this reader feels personal. What I love about his writing is how the words move to only create ideas and paint pictures but move you to feel and reflect. The best word I can think to describe Above Ground is that it is deeply tender and real. I highly recommend that anyone who want to experience life to read this book. Clint Smith has gone it again.

I was first introduced to Clint Smith’s writing in my undergrad Shakespeare class, of all places, where my professior insisted on everyone reading for the first ten minutes of class. She had just purchased his book, Counting Descent, and I gobbled up Smith’s words. Above Ground has a decidedly parental take, but his words are no less grave than Counting Descent. At once lyrically profound yet approachable, Smith’s book will have heavy rotation in my classroom.

What a lovely book of poems this is! Smith writes with a range of emotions about everything from having children to the devastation of Katrina to the structural racism in our country and how we deal, or don't deal, with it. I was surprised by how moved I was, particularly by the sense of two different kids of loss in Punctuation and what I thought would be a light poem in Ode to Bedtime. I look forward to recommending this book to everyone I can. A big thank you to Little, Brown and Company and to NetGalley for the advance copy for my honest opinion.

✨ Review ✨ Above Ground by Clint Smith

This is one of the (if not THE) best books of poetry I've ever read. While most books of poetry feel roughly thematically connected, this has a sense of narrative that runs through it. Throughout the book, he moves from his wife's pregnancy with his son to his son as a newborn, and then as a toddler (with the addition of his daughter along the way) -- this feeling of life cycle, as well as open discussion about life, death, and the generations that pass, provide a structure to the book that I don't often experience reading poetry.

The poetry about his children and parenthood were just so spot on. I related to so much of what he said.

And then he intersperses poems about history and memory and race and climate change and the erosion of the Louisiana coastline, and these poems were extraordinary. They resonate but they're so very accessible. Instead of feeling like "I don't really understand poetry," I felt like a participant while reading; like we were having a conversation. I highly recommend this - especially to parents of younger children and those invested in social justice and change.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: poetry (almost read partly like a memoir in verse)
Pub Date: March 28. 2023

Thanks to Little, Brown, and co. and #netgalley for an advanced e-copy of this book!

Thank you to Clint Smith, Little, Brown and Company, and Netgalley for a free advanced reader copy (arc) of "Above Ground" for an honest review.

A lover of all things written/recorded/produced by Clint Smith, and an annual teacher of Smith's first poetry volume, "Counting Descent," I jumped at this release review immediately. I was not disappointed. The very first poem you open the book to is the cleanest example of again of how good his poetry is, how rare the turn happens in the center of the work, and the unexpected heart squeezing close. I was breathless and devoured this so fast after opening to the first pages and poems.

This collection is a gorgeous reflection on fatherhood, the birth of Smith's second child, the raising of both, the four corners of his family, and all the echoes back up his family tree, both in terms of people and places. All of this so move me. I will be moving it into my curriculum, buying a copy for myself, and several poetry friends.