Background
Smith, William Jay was born on April 22, 1918 in Winnfield, Louisiana, United States. Son of Jay and Georgia (Campster) Smith.
(A rhythmic celebration of hats, written in lively verse, ...)
A rhythmic celebration of hats, written in lively verse, about a young boy and his dog who try on real and fantastical hats throughout history. The author's other collections of nonsense verse include Laughing Time and Puptents and Pebbles.
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( This selection of William Jay Smith's work of sixty yea...)
This selection of William Jay Smith's work of sixty years covers the entire career of one of America's acknowledged poetic masters. It moves from the dark pre-war lyrics (Quail in Autumn) to the powerful long-lined free verse of the 1960s (The Tin Can). Here are memorable WWII lyrics (Dark Valentine) and masterful light verse (The Tall Poets), displaying the wit that enlivens all of Smith's work. Previously uncollected poems range from a haunting delineation of the ironies of age in "The Shipwreck" to the dramatic intensity of The Cherokee Lottery, which deals with the forced removal of Indian tribes east of the Mississippi. Praise for William Jay Smith: "A most gifted and original poet... One of the very few who cannot be confused with anybody else." -- Richard Wilbur "William Jay Smith has been one of our best poets for more than sixty years, and The Cherokee Lottery is his masterwork: taut, harrowing, eloquent, and profoundly memorable." -- Harold Bloom "His best poems are unlike anything else in contemporary American literature... Although often based on realistic situations, Smith's compressed, formal lyrics develop language musically in a way which summons an intricate, dreamlike set of images and associations." -- Dana Gioia "William Jay Smith has given us many of the truest and purest poems an American has written: the most resonantly musical, the most magical." -- X. J. Kennedy
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(Poet William Jay Smith here joins with artist Jacques Hni...)
Poet William Jay Smith here joins with artist Jacques Hnizdovsky to create a sprightly and elegant collection of poems to read aloud. In the Godine tradition of publishing books for children that both challenge and delight, this is one edition that just may be more prized by parents, for we have decided to do the collaboration justice by printing it letterpress (with the woodcuts in a very subtle third color). But even if you are not enamored of the dents of metal in paper, you will certainly be seduced by Smith's marvelous sprung rhythms and catchy cadences, with each poem accompanied by the strong and vibrant woodcuts created by the gentle genius of Jacques Hnizdovsky.
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(Middletown, CT: Wesleyan Univeristy Press, 1961. First Ed...)
Middletown, CT: Wesleyan Univeristy Press, 1961. First Edition. Signed by lead hoaxer Witter Bynner as "Emanuel Morgan", presented to Kenneth L. Ball, the student who first discovered his identity. Octavo, 158 pp, beige cloth with black and white imprinting, jacket. Fine book in near fine jacket showing trace edgewear. A singular copy of the book about "the hoax" . In the early years of the twentieth century, all of the arts - particularly poetry - were thriving in the midst of a post-industrial-revolution swell of excitement, creativity and new aesthetic "schools"; poetry, for its part, rolled out Imagism, Vorticism, Futurism, Chorism, and a rogue's gallery of other new poetic genres, each based on its own aesthetic theorizing. Appearing in the midst of this rather joyous and certainly passionate carnival were Emanuel Morgan, expatriate painter-turned-poet reunited with his native Pittsburgh, and his close friends and colleagues, the beautiful Hungarian poet (who wrote in Russian) Anna Knish, and barrister Elijah Hay. In 1916, Morgan and Knish took the poetry world by storm with their Spectrist school of poetry, which was based on three visions of the term - spectra, the task of the artist to perceived beauty in its component colors, rather than as the glorious white light in which it occurs naturally; the reflex vibrations of that same light which occur only within the artist, like the light phenomena in our eyes; and spectre, the yet more difficult task of uncovering the subtle, hidden spirits behind and within beauty. Morgan used regular rhymed stanza in his spectrism offerings, while Knish used only free verse, but they were attempting the same thing. The poetic world was quickly awash in discussion and analysis of the spectrist school; a few thought the intellectual foundation to be a bit pretentiously framed, others thought it strange
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(Smith's memoirs describe his experiences growing up on an...)
Smith's memoirs describe his experiences growing up on an Army base outside St. Louis in the years between the two world wars. Because Smith's father was an enlisted man, Smith was subject to the rigid discipline and hierarchy of military life at that time. This coming-of-age story evokes both a time gone by and a young writer's discovery of language, sexuality, and all the possibilities that the world might hold for him. In recalling his participation in a high school choral contest, Smith hints at his growing discovery of his own powers: "I had the odd, pleasing, and yet somehow terrifying sensation that while my voice was now only one among many, some day it would rise above the others and be heard in the vast realm represented by those stone towers and green lawns." Washington Post reviewer Stephanie Vaughn declared "The life of the military child has been so little documented that it is a pleasure to see it so fully handled in the poet William Jay Smith's memoir . . . and is for the most part a balanced and beguiling account of an unusual life lived in a little-known subculture." "Mr. Smith has written a charming portrait of this forgotten world," wrote Paul Zweig in The New York Times Book Review. "He evokes the sharp clink of the training rifles and the picnics on rough brown Army blankets overlooking the equally brown and muddy Mississippi. He evokes small things, like the V-shaped heavy cardboard his father hooked around the buttons on his uniform preparatory to buffing and polishing them. And he evokes the sometimes squalid living quarters, such as a two-room shack perched over a sinkhole, where he lived when he was six. . . . Mr. Smith himself is by no means absent, but we learn about him less in what he tells us about himself than by seeing what he sees and evokes with such intense simplicity." American poet William Jay Smith was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1968 to 1970.
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( For the first time in poetic form, The Cherokee Lottery...)
For the first time in poetic form, The Cherokee Lottery treats one of the greatest tragedies in American history, the forced removal of the Southern Indian tribes east of the Mississippi. When gold was discovered on Cherokee land in northern Georgia in 1828, the U.S. Government passed the Removal Act, and 18,000 Cherokees, along with other southern tribes--Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Creeks--were forcibly relocated to Oklahoma territory. Herded along under armed guard, they traveled in bitter cold weather and as many as a quarter died on what became known as "The Trail of Tears." In powerful poetry of epic proportions, which Harold Bloom has called his best work, Smith paints a stark and vivid picture of this ordeal and its principal participants, among them Sequoyah, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, and Osceola, the Seminole chief.
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(Here is a collection of poems that celebrate love. The se...)
Here is a collection of poems that celebrate love. The selections are as varied as the experience of love and are by turns playful, enduring, joyful, and surprising. Well-known poets are represented in addition to newer voices. Delicate watercolors by Jane Dyer present the many moods of love in exquisite detail. Full color.
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("Now touch the air softly,/Step gently, One, two. . ./I'l...)
"Now touch the air softly,/Step gently, One, two. . ./I'll love you till roses and robin's-egg blue;/I'll love you till gravel/Is eaten for bread,/And lemons are orange,/And lavender's red." So begins "A Pavane for the Nursery," one of William Jay Smith's most celebrated and charming love poems. Collected here for the first time are this and many more of Smith's enchanting paeans to love, a bevy of bewitched words of the sort no loved one could ever hear enough. Whether committed to a delighted reader's memory, recited out loud at a romantic wedding, or set to music by a love-struck composer (as Ned Rorem has done), the poems in this intimate book, illustrated by the late Ukrainian woodcut master Jacques Hnizdovsky, bespeak love in a variety of forms. Also included are striking translations of such poets as Frederico Garcia Lorca and Jacques Prevert. A most gifted and original poet ... One of the very few who cannot be confused with anybody else. --Richard Wilbur Smith is rooted in the concrete and the sensuous--in sight, sound, and touch ... That he has written poems replete with rhythm, rhyme, wit, and melody ... is cause for celebration, homage, and gratitude. --Elizabeth Frank, "The Atlantic Monthly" Poetry by William Jay Smith. Illustrations by Jacques Hnizdovsky. 5.5 x 6.5 in. 31 b/w illustrations
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Smith, William Jay was born on April 22, 1918 in Winnfield, Louisiana, United States. Son of Jay and Georgia (Campster) Smith.
Student, Institut de Touraine, Tours, France, 1938; Bachelor of Arts, Washington University, St. Louis, 1939; Master of Arts, Washington University, St. Louis, 1941; postgraduate, Columbia University, 1946-1947; postgraduate Rhodes scholar, University of Oxford, 1947-1948; postgraduate, U. Florence, Italy, 1948-1950; Doctor of Letters, New England College, 1973.
Assistant in French, Washington University, 1939-1941;
instructor English and French, Columbia University, 1946-1947;
lecturer English, Williams College, 1951;
poet in residence, lecturer English, Williams College, 1959-1964, 66-67;
Ford Foundation fellow, Arena Stage, Washington, 1964-1965;
writer in residence, Hollins College, 1965-1966;
Professor of English, Hollins College, 1967, 70-80;
professor emeritus, Hollins College, 1980. Poet laureate Library. of Congress, Washington, 1968-1970, honorary consultant in American letters, 1970-1976. Visiting professor, acting chairman, writing division School Arts, Columbia University, 1973, 74-75.
Member of staff Salzburg (Austria) Seminar, 1975. Member jury National Book award, 1962, 70, 75, Neustadt International prize for literature, 1978, Committee of Pegasus Prize for Literature, 1979-1998. Poet in residence Cathedral St. John the Divine, New York, 1985-1988.
( For the first time in poetic form, The Cherokee Lottery...)
(A rhythmic celebration of hats, written in lively verse, ...)
(A rhythmic celebration of hats, written in lively verse, ...)
(Poet William Jay Smith here joins with artist Jacques Hni...)
( This selection of William Jay Smith's work of sixty yea...)
(A collection of poetry on a variety of subjects and in a ...)
( Written before his death of TB at 27, this subtle work ...)
( A revised edition of a beloved collection of wacky poem...)
(Smith's memoirs describe his experiences growing up on an...)
(History, American History & Studies, Literary Studies)
(Here is a collection of poems that celebrate love. The se...)
("Now touch the air softly,/Step gently, One, two. . ./I'l...)
(Middletown, CT: Wesleyan Univeristy Press, 1961. First Ed...)
(Contains nonsense poems on a variety of topics.)
(bilingual, w/Venetian Renaissance woodcuts)
(A delightful book of verse for children. It still brings ...)
(Illustrated young child's reading book.)
(Cute poetry book for children.)
(Book by Smith, William Jay)
(1st)
Member Vermont House of Representatives, 1960-1962. Served to lieutenant United States Naval Reserve, 1941-1945. Member American Academy Arts and Letters (vice president for literature 1986-1989), American Association Rhodes Scholars, Academy American Poets, Authors Guild, P.E.N. Clubs: Century.
Married Barbara Howes, October 1, 1947 (divorced June 1965). Children: David Emerson, Gregory Jay. Married Sonja Haussmann, September 3, 1966.