Larry R. Smith's Blog
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Dec.15.2012
http://www.fci.org/new-site/par-tragic-events.html
This quote from Fred Rogers makes the most heart sense. I just want to share it with you.
"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping."...
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Dec.12.2012
Bottom Dog Press has been around for 27 years now, and we have just published our 150th book through our imprint Bird Dog Publishing. We grew from doing a chapbook the first year to two the three a year. This last year we published 12 full size books of literary worth. While many small presses...
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Oct.15.2012
I have rediscovered the sheer beauty and quiet insight of American poet Denise Levertov (1923-1997). A friend of fellow poets Robert Duncan, William Carlos Williams, Muriel Rukeyser, Adrienne Rich, Lucille Clifton...she wrote of life's fundamental mystery and loved her craft. As Levertov biographer...
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Oct.14.2012
I have two reviews of some important poetry books just out. These are posted on New York Book Journal....one is on Nancy Willard, the other is on the biography of Denise Levertov by Dana Greene. I invite you to check them out. They both have much to reveal about the writing process.
Here is an...
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Dec.30.2011
Larry Smith
is a native Midwesterner, born and raised in a working-class family in the industrial Ohio River Valley. In 1965 he graduated from Muskingum Colleg in Ohio and at 21 married a hometown girl, Ann Zaben. He woked in the steel mills that summer and they soon moved to Euclid, Ohio...
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Aug.25.2011
This says it so well, I have nothing to add:
From ORION magazine...by Jay Griffiths
Art is a messenger carrying to its audience what Arthur Miller called “news of the inner world,” and he continued, if people “went too long without such news they would go mad with the chaos of their lives.”...
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Aug.21.2011
I have developed a web page that captures author Kenneth Patchen's life and times by featuring the places where he and wife Miriam lived and including segments from my biography Kenneth Patchen: Rebel Poet in America. Patchen wrote poetry, anti-novels, and did painted poems and poetry-jazz from...
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Jun.11.2011
Okay, we've made the commitment to make our services available to fellow writers. I've been editing manuscripts for over 20 years now and working with Susanna Sharp-Schwacke on layout and cover design for small presses. Many times we see a manuscript that has potential but would require hours and...
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Apr.25.2011
The Storyteller’s Story for Sue
Did she choose to be a storyteller
or did storytelling choose her?
I’m the only one who wonders this still;
for all the others, it’s just who she was,
the family storyteller. As a young girl
helping her mother with dishes and food,
she’d serve a...
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Mar.09.2011
As an author and editor and small press publisher I've been involved in so many book launches that I've become accustomed to big being little. I mean, lately, if we gather 20 people in and sell 5 books, I'm happy. So that's why I feel the need to share this story that erases all of that. About a...
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Feb.19.2011
Alex and the Boy Wolf...So Where's the truth?
So, my grandson Alex has been using his imagination lately, telling some good made-up things, like flying the whole family to Huron Market during the snow storm...on his broom, etc. It's fun and good for him, but sometimes we can't tell where the truth...
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Dec.18.2010
Some Chief Appalachian Poets
(Please add suggestions to this partial list by contacting Larry Smith of Bottom Dog Press at Lsmithdog@aol.com Thanks to Edwina Pendarvis for help with this list; it's in development We are listing those from Appalachia who either by reputation or...
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Nov.21.2010
Meditation and Yoga: A Road to Recovery Four of the founding members of Sandusky's Converging Paths Meditation Center travelled to Lennox, Massachusetts for three days of training during the first week of November. The retreat was held at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health <...
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Feb.26.2010
As many of you know, I direct of Bottom Dog Press, an independent small literary publisher from the Midwest. Age...over 60, so I was around during the turbulent 1960's and early 1970's...in fact was teaching at Kent State University when the shooting occurred. So when I received a big 400 page...
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Feb.05.2010
We are pleased to announce the publication of our Bottom Dog Press Poetry Anthology, the fruits of 25 years of independent small press publishing. Due out in March. Edited by Laura Smith, Allen Frost, and senior editor Larry Smith. Poems from our 91 books and 65 poets. It's a chorus of voices that...
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On The Free Farm: A Novel...Smith provides a unique window into Lee’s young life that is driven by idealism, love of Emerson and Thoreau, and devotion to his beautiful partner, who practices Zen, meditates, and can fix cars….In this realistic yet often surprising and tender novel, a quoted line from 'The Waking' by Theodore Roethke serves as a guidepost: 'I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow/ I feel my fate in what I cannot fear/ I learn by going where I have to go.' ”
—Laura Treacy Bentley
About Larry
I grew up in the industrial Ohio River Valley along the green Appalachian hills. I taught 3 years on high school English before returning to grad school at Kent State University and was there with my wife and daughter during the Kent State shootings. I then...
Connections
Causes Larry Smith Supports
peace and justice, meditation
Larry’s Favorite Books
Walden, Kenneth Patchen Collected Poems