A Suit or a Suitcase

“Maggie Smith’s luminous fifth poetry collection, A Suit or a Suitcase, considers mortality, motherhood, and the layers of the self with her signature humor, wit, and keen eye for detail. With crisp, lyrical observations and striking images, Smith muses on what it means to be a self, how a self may evolve over time, and the odd, potent power of the human mind to both contain and transcend the limits of experience. Wry and poignant, A Suit or a Suitcase is a thoughtful companion for anyone trying to pay attention to the self, the world (physical and invisible), and the constant surprises of memory and love.”
—Shelf Awareness (starred review)
“An accessible and fullhearted collection.”
—Booklist

“The poems are sometimes lighthearted and at other times heavy with humanity, which, at every moment in history (and certainly now) weighs us down with our responsibilities as well as our vulnerabilities. And yet, true to Smith’s aesthetic, there is space for hope and joy. There are the many lives we live and the ways we get better at surviving them; there are children to love and for whom to hope for a slightly better future; and finally, there is the world, both beautiful and beastly, the source of our woes and the scene of every wonder we’ve ever witnessed. It is all difficult, and yet there is still reason enough to try to finish the story.”
—Bookpage
“The poems in A Suit, or A Suitcase point us to larger considerations of the divine. Maggie Smith writes a poetry of profound belonging. The emotional wilderness we enter is rendered more sacred thanks to her commitment to a commonality of speech. At the core of her work is a playfulness, yet too, an insightfulness that urges self reflection. This is a book to return to again and again. Why? One day we will find ourselves near a river and there will be Maggie proclaiming every version of who we are.”
—Major Jackson, author of Razzle Dazzle
“These poems help me live. A Suit or a Suitcase explore intricate metaphysical subjects, the nature and interrelationships between the body, the mind, the soul, the self, mortality, and time, with a broad, companionable generosity. Her questions shed sparks, yet her lines, her images, are purposeful; they aspire to clarify rather than obfuscate. These poems share the fruits of a difficult aloneness, and the work of a polished mind and an endlessly revised self that has learned to endure mystery, even while lugging around ‘the whole shebang’ of her life, even while staying home, staying put. Smith’s is a poetry of grace.”
—Diane Seuss, Pulitzer Prize winning author of frank: sonnets and Modern Poetry

“A Suit or a Suitcase is a really confident, satisfying collection of poems. Not a word or idea is out of place. The title poem is a real standout.”
—Roxane Gay

“I love Maggie Smith’s poems. She is immensely generous to all readers. She gives us her sometimes dark, often hilarious, always questioning, always familiar awareness of the strangeness of the everyday. She shares her insights, her pain, her humility, her intense love of people and the world. To read her poems is to become more aware, more sensitive, more loving, more present, more alive.”
—Matthew Zapruder, author of I Love Hearing Your Dreams and Story of a Poem

Maggie Smith is the award-winning New York Times bestselling author of nine books of poetry and prose, including A Suit or a Suitcase, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Good Bones, Goldenrod, Keep Moving, and My Thoughts Have Wings. She has been widely published, appearing in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Nation, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Best American Poetry, and more. She is the host of The Slowdown.

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