You get to a certain age where you know who you are and you don't have to apologize for that or feel like that's even required like I understand too that my perspective on things and my sense of humor are not everyone's.

When I'm writing, I'm not really speaking to everyone.

I really want to think about the things that I'm making, becoming part of somebody else's life.

The best books, the best songs, the best poems are sort of lenses that once you've spent time with them you view the world and your experiences differently after you've read it.

It becomes this lens that you see things through and it changes you.

So what if a poem could change your life? Have you ever read something that felt like it literally cracked your world open

open giving words to experiences that you thought were

unutterable. My guest today Maggie Smith she experienced exactly that, but not as a reader, as the

writer of the poem Goodbones.

After being rejected by many journals, the poem was eventually published online and quickly

became this global phenomenon.

Her life would never be the same, but in so many ways she never saw coming.

Maggie is the renowned author of multiple bestsellers and award-winning poetry collections

with work appearing in top publications.

In her memoir, you could make this place beautiful which I loved

Maggie just unflinchingly explores the disintegration of her marriage, contemporary

womanhood, her renewed commitment to herself, really weaving together snapshots of life with meditations

on secrets, anger, and narrative itself.

In this deeply honest conversation, Maggie shares how in the early days music actually became

her first poetic teacher allowing her to transcend the constraints of plot and

really distill pure experiences into lyrical language.

And we explore the fateful chain of events that led to Goodbones and the publication that

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