Above Ground

A New York Times bestselling poetry collection from Clint Smith, author of #1 bestseller and National Book Critics Circle Award winner How the Word Is Passed.

"A joyful embrace and legacy of bright language and poignant questions." —Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of World of Wonders

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 Smiths first award-winning book of poetry, Counting Descent.

A Best Book of the Year 2023: TIME • NPR’s Best Books • New York Public Library • Electric Lit • The Root • NBC Today • Mother Jones