Above Ground

"This poetry book, with its reflections on new fatherhood, spoke to me as a parent. The collection stretches across the feelings of parent life from a delightful ode to the baby swing to a poem on marveling at cicadas with the author’s children. But it’s not just light fare. Smith also writes of his home city of New Orleans and of storms and loss, of generations before him and the legacy he is carrying. This collection deftly tells a story across its poems and it’s a story you shouldn’t miss."