William Jay Smith

American poet. He was appointed the nineteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1968 to 1970. He was brought up at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, south of St. Louis. Smith received his A.B. and M.A. from Washington University in St. Louis, and continued his studies at Columbia University, and Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. In 1947 he married the poet Barbara Howes, and they lived for a time in England and Italy. They had two sons. They divorced in the mid-1960s. Smith was a poet in residence at Williams College from 1959–1967, taught at Columbia University from 1973 until 1975. He serves as the Professor Emeritus of English literature at Hollins University. Smith is the author of ten collections of poetry of which two were finalists for the National Book Award. He has been member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1975. His work has appeared in Harpers Magazine and The New York Review of Books, Link to Wikipedia biography Read less