Publishers Weekly
02/10/2020
Poet Smith (Good Bones) reflects on loss, beauty, and transformation in a thoughtful but not entirely satisfying collection. The slight volume compiles inspirational tweets—all concluding with the admonition to “keep moving”—that Smith began writing in the wake of a divorce. The messages are loosely organized into three parts (“Revision,” “Resilience,” and “Transformation”) and interspersed with short personal essays. When read individually, the bite-size sentiments succeed as wise and compassionate pieces of encouragement. But bound together in book format, they blur together and fail to leave much of an impression. The bland, minimalist design doesn’t do the work any favors, either. Meanwhile, the essays, which carry on the same themes, but add details of Smith’s own experiences, are uneven. While some rely on tired metaphors of transformation (fire, chrysalises), others have striking and memorable imagery that showcases Smith’s eye as a poet: “like when you pull your hand out of a bucket of water, and the water takes back the space.” Smith’s reflections on her struggles with miscarriage and postpartum depression are especially affecting. Readers will wish her obvious talents had been used in a way that does them justice. (May)
From the Publisher
"In a season of unprecedented uncertainty, KEEP MOVING has arrived just in time."
—Bookpage (starred review)
"Keep Moving...is a meditation on kindness and hope, and how to move forward through grief."
—NPR
“Powerful essays on loss, endurance, and renewal.”
—People
"It’s in these essays that Smith exerts her superpower as a writer: her ability to find the perfect concrete metaphor for inchoate human emotions and explore it with empathy and honesty."
—Slate
“In the end, it is much larger than any individual, much taller than a personal stack of obstacles. Keep Moving has the ability to look inside of us and see our struggles, too."
—Ploughshares
"A title for the moment."
—Associated Press
"Keep Moving is a shining reminder to learn all we can from this moment, rebuilding ourselves in the darkness so that we may come out wiser, kinder, and stronger on the other side."
—Boston Globe
"An excellent COVID-19-era pick me up.”
—Huffington Post
"Part meditation, part essay collection and all inspiration, this beautiful little book will keep you moving forward, no matter what's holding you back."
—Good Housekeeping
"Smith's gem is packed with luminous quotes and essays about resilience, transformation and moving forward no matter the circumstances."
—Newsweek
"Keep Moving speaks to you like an encouraging friend reminding you that you can feel and survive deep loss, sink into life’s deep beauty, and constantly, constantly make yourself new."
—Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times Bestselling author of Love Warrior and Untamed
"In Keep Moving, poet Maggie Smith takes what William James called 'torn-to-pieces-hood' and knits it into something new and surprising and fortifying. I'm so grateful for the clarity, compassion, and wit in these pages. This is a book that will change you, a book you will want to give to someone you love. I’ve never read anything quite like it.”
—Lucy Kalanithi, Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine, Stanford University, and widow of Paul Kalanithi, author of When Breath Becomes Air
“Every once in a long, long while a book comes along that challenges and changes everything. Keep Moving is exactly that book: an ingenious synthesis of poetry, proverbs, journaling, lyrical prose, belles-lettres, psalms, meditations, and aphorisms. It defies any tidy definition, and thus, practically defines a new genre that gives everyone—no matter what walk of life—the gift of pausing to reflect on what we didn’t know we already knew about ourselves because we never had words for it, until Maggie Smith. These pages give us a unique and poetic opportunity to recognize the joys within our failures, the peace within our terrors, the simplicity within our complex lives—and then some! It is sure to become a classic that will be read for decades to come.”
—Richard Blanco, Presidential Inaugural Poet, author of How to Love a Country
“Keep Moving offers a bouquet of generosities in one hand, and a bouquet of soft but firm honesty in the other.... A promise that what doesn’t get better sometimes gets easier. And that, too, is worthy of celebration.”
—Hanif Abdurraqib, author of Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to a Tribe Called Quest
“I read this book in one sitting during one of the most difficult weeks of my life....This isn’t lofty self-help stuff; she doesn’t speak from above. Instead, she speaks next to you, whispering right in your ear that we are all in the trenches together. Every single page of this book made me breathe a little deeper and feel a little less alone.”
—Amanda Palmer, singer, songwriter, musician, author of The Art of Asking
“I wish I’d had a copy of Keep Moving when my first marriage ended. It would have consoled my fears about being alone. Maggie Smith writes so honestly without being brutal, and she shows readers hope while avoiding the saccharine... To experience relief from a book is a rare and wonderful thing. Keep Moving gave me that relief.”
—Bella Mackie, author of Jog On
“I lived this book in real time. I was going through something hard and heartbreaking, and every day I’d log onto social media....to read what you now hold in your hands: truth and pain and empathy and the wisdom that comes with living. We keep moving. I kept moving. So can you. I will carry copies of this beautiful gift of a book in my pockets and give them to everyone I know.”
—Megan Stielstra, author of The Wrong Way to Save Your Life
“Candid, lyrical, and full of empathy, this is a book that feels vital and welcome in these times . . . . A stunning and wise piece of work.”
—Sinéad Gleeson, author of Constellations
“Maggie Smith’s mantras are a faithful and forgiving companion, coaxing us through the darkness and toward our own resilience.”
—Rebecca Soffer, coauthor Modern Loss: Candid Conversation About Grief. Beginners Welcome.
“Maggie Smith’s voice is the one I hear in my head, the one that keeps me going when I don’t feel I can. And now, with this book, she has gifted the entire world with that particular brand of magic."
—Jennifer Pastiloff, author of On Being Human
"Keep Moving is perfect for right now"
—Al Roker, The Today Show
"A lovely reflective and insightful book that elaborates how one can survive loss and appreciate life's beauty. Reading Maggie's work made me remember why I love meditation and poetry."
—Belletrist
Boston Globe - Nicole Graev Lipson
"Keep Moving is a shining reminder to learn all we can from this moment, rebuilding ourselves in the darkness so that we may come out wiser, kinder, and stronger on the other side."
—Boston Globe
Ploughshares - JA Tyler
In the end, it is much larger than any individual, much taller than a personal stack of obstacles. Keep Moving has the ability to look inside of us and see our struggles, too."
—Ploughshares
Huffington Post - Sarah Kollmorgen
An “excellent COVID-19-era pick me up!”
—Huffington Post 10 Of The Most Anticipated Book Releases Of October 2020
NPR - Mary Louise Kelly
"Keep Moving [...] is a meditation on kindness and hope, and how to move forward through grief."
—NPR
Slate - Dan Kois
"It’s in these essays that Smith exerts her superpower as a writer: her ability to find the perfect concrete metaphor for inchoate human emotions and explore it with empathy and honesty."
—Slate
The Today Show
"Keep Moving is perfect for right now"
—Al Roker, The Today Show
People
Powerful essays on loss, endurance, and renewal.”
–People
Kirkus Reviews
2020-03-01
Words of encouragement from an award-winning poet.
A couple years ago, following the end of her marriage, Smith, the author of Good Bones (2017) and other poetry collections, took to Twitter to share a daily affirmation, imploring herself and her readers to #keepmoving. Combined with original short essays, those tweets demonstrate that social media can be a source of wisdom, as the author allows her own story of grief and transformation to inspire. Drawing on her experience as a writer, Smith views the self through the metaphor of a composition, one the “author” must constantly tend to: “Accept that you are a work in progress, both a revision and a draft: you are better and more complete than earlier versions of yourself, but you also have work to do. Be open to change. Allow yourself to be revised.” She continues later, “revise the story you tell yourself about rejection. All that tells you is what you were worth to someone else—not what you are worth.” Whether or not we are the authors of ourselves in any real sense, the metaphor is a powerful one that encourages the agency it takes to positively reframe pain and disappointment as opportunities for growth. If this sounds like self-help, it is. Even the book’s interior design has more in common with a fancy greeting card than with a traditional book, poetry or prose. But self-help needn’t be a slur derived from the worst instances of the genre. Smith offers a reminder of what self-help can be at its best: intelligent, honest, uncompromising, and, most importantly, helpful. The author’s frequent references to the writing life may mean the book resonates most deeply with her fellow artists, but for anyone who has known struggle—i.e., everyone—it will resonate plenty.
Simple yet profound insights and advice to return to in times of confusion or loss.
