Thomas R. Smith
Presenter:
“A Year of Writing Dangerously”
Thomas R. Smith is the author of ten books of poems, including Windy Day at Kabekona: New and Selected Prose Poems (White Pine Press, 2018), Storm Island (Red Dragonfly Press, 2020) and Medicine Year (Paris Morning Publications 2022). He has also edited several books including Airmail: The Letters of Robert Bly and Tomas Transtromer (Graywolf Press, 2013).
His prose work, Poetry on the Side of Nature: Writing the Nature Poem as an Act of Survival (2022) is published by Red Dragonfly Press. Smith currently teaches poetry at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and posts poems and essays on his web site at www.thomasrsmithpoet.com.
About his presentation, Thomas quotes Rumi, who said “Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah. It makes absolutely no difference what people think.” Smith explores a “huge, foolish project” of his own, a chronicle in prose and poetry of a year along his local river, the Kinnickinnic in western Wisconsin. What is it like to commit an entire year to writing a book? What “dangers” of failure haunt such an effort? What reserves of self-confidence and sheer blind faith does it take not to falter mid-course and fail?
Smith has undertaken the year-long journey in writing more than once, and he encourages both poets and prose writers to test their mettle and inner resources against the challenge of the “long-distance run.” He will also discuss writers such as Aldo Leopold and Scott King, among others, who have undertaken their own long distance literary runs.
“I write to learn,” Smith says. No matter your genre, there is something for you in this instructive session.