Frederick Smock was a Kentucky poet laureate, a literary journal editor and a Bellarmine University professor whose straightforward poetry lyrically evoked the natural world.
“As soon as I met Fred Smock, then a graduate student at the University of Louisville, I knew I was in the company of a special and wonderful sensibility,” said Sena Jeter Naslund, a Hall of Fame novelist and former Kentucky poet laureate who was his teacher at U of L. “To have seen his journey as a distinguished poet, trail-breaking editor and splendid teacher has been both comforting and inspiring.”
When Smock was 6, his father moved the family from Louisville to suburban Fern Creek, where he often spent time wandering forests and fields. “I am drawn to nature,” he once said.
After Seneca High School, Smock earned a bachelor’s degree at Georgetown College and his master of arts at the University of Louisville. He did post-graduate study at the University of Arizona.
From 1985 until 1998, Smock and Sallie Bingham, the late writer and philanthropist, co-edited The American Voice, a literary journal. He later joined Bellarmine University, teaching English and creative writing. He was appointed Kentucky Poet Laureate for 2017-2018.
“As Poet Laureate, Fred’s intent was to bring poetry to as broad an audience as possible, and he did that by simply reading and talking about poems, and reminding listeners of the joy in sound, rhythm, and rhyme that we have as children,” said George Ella Lyon, another former Kentucky poet laureate and Hall of Fame member.
In addition to poetry collections, Smock published poems in many prominent literary journals, including The Southern Review, The Iowa Review, The Hudson Review, Poetry East, Ars-Interpres (Sweden), The Georgetown Review and Olivier (Argentina).
Major Works:
Gardencourt (1997)
The Good Life (2000)
Guest House (2003)
Poetry & Compassion: Essays on Arts and Craft (2006)
Pax Intrantibus: A Meditation on the Poetry of Thomas Merton (2007)
Craft-Talk: On Writing Poetry (2008)
The Blue Hour (2010)
The Bounteous World (2013)
Major Awards:
Wilson Wyatt Faculty Award at Bellarmine University (2005)
Al Smith Fellowship in Poetry from the Kentucky Arts Council
Jim Wayne Miller Prize for Poetry from Western Kentucky University.
