William Jay Smith (April 22, 1918 – August 18, 2015) was an American poet. He was appointed the nineteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1968 to 1970.

Life

William Jay Smith was born in Winnfield,

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

. He was brought up at

Jefferson Barracks, Missouri The Jefferson Barracks Military Post is located on the Mississippi River at Lemay, Missouri, south of St. Louis. It was an important and active U.S. Army installation from 1826 through 1946. It is the oldest operating U.S. military installation w ...

, south of St. Louis. Smith received his A.B. and M.A. from

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...

and continued his studies at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. Smith later attended

Wadham College, Oxford Wadham College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street and Parks Road. Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Dorothy W ...

as a Rhodes Scholar and continued his education at the

University of Florence The University of Florence (Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Firenze'', UniFI) is an Italian public research university located in Florence, Italy. It comprises 12 schools and has around 50,000 students enrolled. History The first universi ...

. In 1947 he married the poet

Barbara Howes Barbara Howes (May 1, 1914 New York City – February 24, 1996 Bennington, Vermont) was an American poet. Life She was adopted and raised in Chestnut Hill, attending Beaver Country Day School. She graduated from Bennington College in 1937. She ...

and they lived for a time in England and Italy. They had two sons, David Smith and Gregory. They divorced in the mid-1960s. Smith was a poet in residence at

Williams College Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kill ...

from 1959–1967 and taught at

from 1973 until 1975. He served as the

Professor Emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

of English literature at

Hollins University Hollins University is a private university in Hollins, Virginia. Founded in 1842 as Valley Union Seminary in the historical settlement of Botetourt Springs, it is one of the oldest institutions of higher education for women in the United States ...

. He was the first Native American named to the position of Poet Laureate in the United States. As of 2008, he lived in houses located in both

Cummington, Massachusetts Cummington is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 829 at the 2020 census, down from 872 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. History Cummingto ...

, and

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, France. Smith was the author of ten collections of

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

of which two were finalists for the

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

. He had been a member of the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

since 1975. His work appeared in ''Harper's Magazine'', ''The New York Review of Books,

Works

Poetry

* * * * * reprint 2002 *

Poems for children

* reprint 1980 * * * rev. ed., 1989 * *

Translations

* * ''Poems of a Multimillionaire'' by Valéry Larbaud (1955) * reprint 1972 * ''Two Plays'' by Charles Bertin : "Christopher Columbus" and "Don Juan" (1970) * ''Songs of C, '' Federico García Lorca (1994).

Non-fiction

* * *

Editor

* *

Plays

Awards

* 1945 Young Poets prize, Poetry * 1964 Ford fellowship for drama * 1970 Henry Bellamann Major award * 1972 Loines award * 1972, 1995 National Endowment for the Arts grant * 1975, 1989 National Endowment for the Humanities grant * 1978 Gold Medal of Labor (Hungary) * 1980 New England Poetry Club

Golden Rose Award The Golden Rose Award, one of America’s oldest literary prizes, was inaugurated in 1919. The rose was modeled after the Gold Rose which is now in the Cluny Museum in Paris. ThNew England Poetry Clubawards the Rose annually for American poetry. ...

* 1982

Ingram Merrill Foundation The Ingram Merrill Foundation was a private foundation established in the mid-1950s by poet James Merrill (1926-1995), using funds from his substantial family inheritance.J. D. McClatchyBraving the Elements ''The New Yorker'', 27 March 1995. Retrie ...

grant * 1990 California Children's Book and Video Awards recognition for excellence (pre-school and toddlers category), for ''Ho for a Hat!'' * 1991 medal (médaille de vermeil) for service to the French language, French Academy * 1993 Pro Cultura Hungarica medal * twice a nominee for the National Book Award in poetry * 1997 René Vásquez Díaz prize, Swedish Academy

References

External links

* * * * * *

External links

"The CPR Interview: William Jay Smith"
''The

Contemporary Poetry Review Garrick Davis (born 1971 in Los Angeles) is an American poet and critic. He was Poetry Editor of ''First Things'' magazine from 2020 until 2021. Career Davis is the founding editor of the ''Contemporary Poetry Review'', the largest online arch ...

''
The William Jay Smith Papers at Washington University in St. Louis

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, William Jay 1918 births 2015 deaths People from Winnfield, Louisiana American expatriates in the United Kingdom American male poets Williams College faculty American Poets Laureate American Rhodes Scholars Formalist poets Washington University in St. Louis alumni Columbia University alumni People from Cummington, Massachusetts Columbia University faculty Hollins University faculty