Arthur Smith came to Knoxville from central California, by way of Houston, Texas, and for more than 30 years he helped poets at the University of Tennessee find the path toward their own voices. His friend and fellow poet Jesse Graves remembers Smith on the fifth anniversary of his death.
FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: In Alabama, October was the first month that you could trust cooler weather was coming to stay. Occasionally, I could even wear a sweater in the morning, and although it was wrapped around my waist by afternoon, the heat was not overbearing. Finally, at night, I could snuggle under a sheet and fall asleep. To make a good thing even better, the month began with my father’s birthday and ended with Halloween. There was nothing bad about October in my eyes.
I quieted, but the panther was already ambling to its feet. Its yellow eyes gave me one of those irritated looks that cats have when disturbed as it glided lazily into the woods.
How, I was wondering, could homesickness affect someone who was so sick of home?
My father’s mother wanted “a gentle man” for a second husband, unlike the first. I don’t know about the first, because he died long before my birth and my father rarely mentioned him.
FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: For a child in small-town Alabama, books provided solace in summers without friends and activities.
