Do we like Maggie Smith?
Our score: 7 out of 10. No harmful words or company turned up, and she speaks up for others, but the record is mostly books and talks, so there is little to measure her against.
Maggie Smith is a poet from Ohio who spent years in the quiet corner of the literary world. Then in 2016 her poem “Good Bones” went viral and put her in front of readers far beyond the usual poetry crowd. She has said the poem's spread is a bit of a disaster barometer, because it surges when something awful happens.
The viral success had a cost. She has said it strained her marriage, because the sudden demands of a writing career collided with who was doing the unpaid work at home. She turned that into her 2023 memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, and told one interviewer she has not discussed the book with her ex-husband. It is a divorce story told from her side, and she is open about that.
On the harm check, the search came up clean. We found no reporting of her pushing anything against LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or the planet, and no sign of her working with people who do. What did turn up points the other way: after the 2024 US election she co-edited an anthology with Saeed Jones, The People's Project, and argued that staying quiet is one way of letting people be disappeared.
That anthology is the best window into her politics. It grew from a personal list she wrote after Donald Trump's re-election, which she called her own project for the year, built around not abandoning herself. She also said that people shouldn't pretend immigration enforcement isn't happening. You can read that as plain decency or as a political stance, but it is her own conduct and it is aimed at protecting others.
Her day job is the gentle stuff. In August 2025 she became the host of The Slowdown, the daily one-poem podcast from American Public Media and the Poetry Foundation, taking over from Major Jackson. Her March 2026 collection, A Suit or a Suitcase, is the latest in a run of poetry and prose books.
So: would we support her? Yes. The honest caveat is that the record is mostly books, talks and interviews, so there is no big public stoush to test her against. No scandal, no dodgy company, and a public record of using her platform to speak up for others.