Maggie Smith (poet)

Maggie Smith is an American poet, freelance writer, and editor who lives in Bexley, Ohio. Her 2016 poem "Good Bones" went viral and her 2023 memoir was a New York Times best-seller.

Early life and education

Smith was born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1977. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1999, and then went on to receive her Master of Fine Arts from Ohio State University in 2003.

Career

From 2003 to 2004, Smith served as the Emerging Writer Lecturer for Gettysburg College. She went on to take a position as an assistant editor with a children's trade book publisher. She worked there for two years, and became an associate editor. Eventually, she decided to make the switch to freelance work.

Smith's poem "Good Bones", originally published in the journal Waxwing in June 2016, has been widely circulated on social media and read by an estimated one million people. A Wall Street Journal story in May 2020 described it as "keeping the realities of life's ugliness from young innocents" and noted that the poem has gone viral after catastrophes such as the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, the May 2017 suicide bombing at a concert in Manchester, England, the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, and the coronavirus pandemic. PRI called it "the official poem of 2016".

Her poems have been published widely, appearing in journals including The Paris Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Iowa Review, The Southern Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, and iamb and being anthologized in From the Other World: Poems in Memory of James Wright; The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror 2008; Apocalypse Now: Poems and Prose from the End of Days, and The Helen Burns Anthology: New Voices from the Academy of American Poets University & College Prizes, Volume 9.

She has published three volumes of poetry followed by a book of essays and inspirational advice, Keep Moving (2020) and a memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful (2023). You Could Make This Place Beautiful debuted at No. 3 on The New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction List.

Personal life

Smith met her former husband, an attorney, at university. They have two children. Their divorce is the focus of her memoir.

Honors and awards

• National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in creative writing
• Sustainable Arts Foundation, Fall 2014
• Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award 2007, 2010
• 2016 Independent Publisher Book Award, Gold Medal in Poetry

Published works

Full-length poetry collections

• Goldenrod (One Signal Publishers, 2021)
• Good Bones (Tupelo Press, 2017)
• The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison (Tupelo Press, 2015)—winner of the 2012 Dorset Prize
• Lamp of the Body (Red Hen Press, 2005)—winner of the Benjamin Saltman Award Poetry Award

Chapbooks

• Disasterology (Dream Horse Press, 2016)—winner of the 2013 Dream Horse Press Chapbook Prize
• The List of Dangers (Kent State University Press, 2010)—winner of the Wick Poetry Series Chapbook Competition
• Nesting Dolls (Pudding House, 2005)

Essay collections

• Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity and Change (One Signal Publishers, 2020)

Memoirs

• You Could Make This Place Beautiful (Simon & Schuster, 2023)

References