Analysis Of Savior Machine By Tracy K. Smith

The United States’ current poet laureate Tracy K. Smith, winner of the pulitzer prize in 2012 for her collection, Life on Mars, is the author of several collections of poetry and a memoir. The poet laureate of the United States acts as the official poet who travels around the nation, making appearances to upraise the being of the writing and reading. Smith was born in Massachusetts, but was raised in southern California by her parents near Travis Air Force base where her father was stationed. Her father, an engineer, later joined NASA to work on the Hubble Space Telescope project; being raised around him apparently made a huge impact on Smith’s fascination with the universe and the questions she has concerning space and its involvement on
Smith’s poem, “Savior Machine,” can be interpreted in many ways, for the reason that poetry is such an abstract idea. One interpretation of this poem is warped around the idea of letting go of something that has happened in the past, possibly a loss. In the last few lines of the poem, Smith states “The session was done. But mostly what I see/ Is a human hand reaching down to lift/ A pebble from my tongue” (23-25). In Renee Shea’s article “Far From Ordinary,” published in the magazine Poet & Writers, she reveals in 1994, when Smith was 22 years old, she lost her mother, then a few years later she lost her father as well. With that being said, one could infer that the “pebble,” mentioned in the poem, being removed from her tongue, is actually her talking about her parents’ death and learning to accept it and move on as a new adult (Shea 36). In order to help her cope through the lost of her mother, she liberated herself through her writing (Shea 36). Losing a parent, even as a grown person, could be a traumatic experience, especially if they were close. A second interpretation of the poem may refer to the process of therapy that Smith may have possibly experienced in her life. When visiting a mental health professional, many people are skeptical about how this would work out in the end for them. They may question themselves, “does it actually work?” In the poem, Smith writes “You existed to me, you were a theory” (15). From this poem, one can speculate that
In both works, although, “Saviour Machine” and “Savior Machine, exhibit a theme of dependence. Bowie’s song represents a dependence on prayer, while Smith’s poem portrays a dependence on the therapy she could have been receiving. For instance, in Bowie’s song, he sang “They called it the Prayer, its answer was law.” People depended on their prayers to be answered by their God, and Bowie understood this because, later, he says “You can’t stake your lives on a savior machine,” basically saying that people should not put their trust into something they do not fully comprehend. As for Smith’s poem, she states “...[A] human hand reaching down to lift/ A pebble from my tongue” (24-25). If one is willing to go to a psychiatrist to help them sort out their mental issues, then she is depending on that psychiatrist to do help her. Tracy K. Smith and David Bowie both tackle some difficult subjects, but manage to get the message across to have it spread through their listeners and