Analysis Of Tracy K. Smith's Life On Mars

Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith shows a distinction between spiritual reality and organized religion in her poem “Cathedral Kitsch”. She was raised Fairfield, California. She was born into a religious family and was the youngest out of five children. Her mother was very involved in the church and the community, while her father was an electronics engineer. After the death of her mother she began to question everything. In an interview with Poets and Writers she said “She struggles to understand her mother’s devotion, especially regarding the concept of salvation, “when the world of my family was the only heaven I needed to believe in.”” (Shea)
Tracy K. Smith’s book Life on Mars was written following the death of her father. The she separated …show more content…
I think she is saying the church is going in the wrong direction. She says “Cameras spit human light Into the vast holy dark, And what glistens back is high and cold. I fell” (Smith 8-11). The lines show how decorative the church is. It is so extravagant that people bring cameras to take pictures of the church. I think this is progress but not in the direction that God wanted the church to go in. God would give to the poor but the church today is about putting the money into the church instead of giving back. We are taught to give back which would be our spiritual reality and the church would be the religion. This shows a difference between spiritual reality and organized religion. The poem shows questioning in how the church really …show more content…
Smith compares what is created from spiritual reality to what has been created as organized religion in her poem “Cathedral Kitsch,”. She shows the progress of the religion by showing how over the top they have become over the years. She then shows how we have put so much money into the church we are not giving everything back to the poor. Not giving to the poor goes against what God wanted. In the bible it say’s ” Rich people who see a brother or sister in need, yet close their hearts against them, cannot claim that they love God” (1 John 3:17) The verse is saying that if we do not give back to the poor we cannot say we love God. She finally describes how God is in everyone. From the rich to the poor. Lastly she says how she feels man through out the cathedral. This poem relates to how we have changed over the years to be what we want something to be. Through the poem “Cathedral Kitsch” she is trying to answer questions for example: where did her father go after he passed away? Is there anything else out in the