You Could Make This Place Beautiful
'Life, like a poem, is a series of choices'
In her long-awaited debut memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, award-winning poet Maggie Smith explores in lyrical vignettes the end of her marriage and the beginning of a surprising new life. With the spirit of reflection and empathy she's known for, Smith interweaves snapshots of a life with meditations on secrets, anger, forgiveness and narrative itself.
It is a story about a mother's fierce and constant love for her children, and a woman's love and regard for herself. Above all, this memoir is an argument for possibility. Smith reveals how, in the aftermath of loss, we can discover our power and make something new. Something beautiful.
Maggie Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of seven books of poetry and prose, including You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Good Bones, Goldenrod, Lamp of the Body, The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison and Keep Moving. Her newest book is My Thoughts Have Wings, her debut picture book for children, illustrated by Leanne Hatch. Smith's poems and essays have appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, Paris Review, TIME, Nation, Atlantic and Best American Poetry.
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