Hello Friends —
So here’s a nice 40th birthday present: a Pulitzer Prize.
It’s official: At long last, a Pulitzer has been awarded to a poetry collection named after a David Bowie song. One of my favorite lines from Tracy K. Smith’s Life on Mars: Poems is, “A pair of eyes. The most remarkable lies.” — but I’m not lying to you:
Life on Mars: Poems really is named for a Bowie song.
The collection really was awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
And the announcement really was made on April 16, 2012, the poet’s 40th birthday.
I find this delightfully poetic. So, in celebration, an excerpt for you from sections 2 and 3 of Smith’s “Don’t You Wonder, Sometimes?” (a poem titled after a line in a much later Bowie song, “Sound and Vision”).
Happy Birthday, Tracy K. Smith!
Enjoy, everyone.
— Ellen
DON’T YOU WONDER, SOMETIMES?
2.
He leaves no tracks. Slips past, quick as a cat. That’s Bowie
For you: the Pope of Pop, coy as Christ. Like a play
Within a play, he’s trademarked twice. The hours
Plink past like water from a window A/C. We sweat it out,
Teach ourselves to wait. Silently, lazily, collapse happens.
But not for Bowie. He cocks his head, grins that wicked grin.
Time never stops, but does it end? And how many lives
Before take-off, before we find ourselves
Beyond ourselves, all glam-glow, all twinkle and gold?
The future isn’t what it used to be. Even Bowie thirsts
For something good and cold. Jets blink across the sky
Like migratory souls.
3.
Bowie is among us. Right here
In New York City. In a baseball cap
And expensive jeans. Ducking into
A deli. Flashing all those teeth
At the doorman on his way back up.
Or he’s hailing a taxi on Lafayette
As the sky clouds over at dusk.
He’s in no rush. Doesn’t feel
The way you’d think he feels.
Doesn’t strut or gloat. Tells jokes.
I’ve lived here all these years
And never seen him. Like not knowing
A comet from a shooting star.
But I’ll bet he burns bright,
Dragging a tail of white-hot matter
The way some of us track tissue
Back from the toilet stall. He’s got
The whole world under his foot . . .