Larry Smith Homepage

Larry
Smith

New
Books
YouTube
Video
Biography

Mingo
Junction Page
& Blogs

Writer
Statement
Books
New
Books Out

The Long
River
Home
A
Novel
by Larry
Smith
A family saga set in
Appalachia's
heartlands.
[Click
on
Cover]

The Kanshi
Poems of
Taigu
Ryokan
[Click
on
Cover]
Translated by
Larry Smith &
Mei Hui Liu
Huang

Sample
Poems
YouTube of
Ryokan's
Poems of
Invitation
from Songs of
the Woodcutter
& The
Kanshi
Poems of
Taigu
Ryokan

Now Out: from
March Street
Press Tu Fu
Comes to
America: A
Story in Poems
by Larry
Smith
[Click
on
Cover]
* *
*

YouTube
video of
Larry reading
a poem
"Tu Fu
Comes to
America"
YouTube
video of
Larry reading
a poem
"Tu Fu Talks
with Barack
Obama"

* * * Coming
Events* * * *

Island Writers'
Retreat....Presentation on
Writing Fiction
Sept.
10-11 for
The Firela

Recent Broadcast
from Garrison
Keillor's "Writer's
Almanac"
featuring a
Larry Smith
poem, click
to listen.

Interests: American
Buddhism, peace
making, film, small
press publishing and
editing, alternative
literature including
rebel poets and
writers, d.a.levy,
Kenneth Patchen,
Cleveland poetry
scene, Ohio and the
Midwest,
working-class writing.
Available for talks
and readings and
programs on the
above.

Recent
Reviews by
Larry Smith

Larry Smith
e-mail
Contact
lsmithdog@smithdocs.net

Larry's
Blog

Larry's
Pages on
Red Room
for Authors
Converging
Paths Meditation
Center in
Sandusky, OH
Ann Smith,
my wife and
often
co-editor has
the
Reiki and
Counseling
Center in
Sandusky, Ohio.

Writer's
Statement

Founder
and director
Bottom
Dog Press
&
Bird Dog
Publishing

—
BOOKS—

Tu Fu Comes to America: A Story in Poems. March Street Press
2010
The Long River Home: A Novel. Working Lives Series,
Bottom Dog Press 2009 The Kanshi Poems of Taigu Ryokan, trans. by Larry
Smith and Mei Hui Liu Huang. Bottom Dog Press 2008.
Faces and Voices: Tales. Bird Dog Publishing 2006.
A River Remains: Poems. WordTech Publishing 2006.
Milldust & Roses: Memoirs. Ridgeway Press 2005; second edition by Bottom Dog Press 2005.
Thoreau's Lost Journal: Poems by Larry Smith. Westron Press, 2001.
Kenneth Patchen: Rebel Poet in America. A Consortium of
Small Presses, 2000. Biography.
Chinese Zen Poems: What Hold Has This Mountain? trans. Bottom Dog Press, 1998.
Working It Out (novel) Ridgeway Press, 1998.
Beyond Rust: Novella and Stories. Bottom Dog Press, 1995.
Steel Valley: Postcards and Letters (Poems). Pig Iron Press, 1992.
Ohio Zen Poems with d. steven conkle (A Twinbook) Bottom Dog
Press, 1989.
Across These States (Journal Poem) Bottom Dog Press, 1985.
Scissors, Paper, Rock (Prose Poems) Cleveland State University Poetry
Center, 1982.
Echo Without Sound (Poems with Etchings by Stephen Smigocki) Northwoods Press,
1982.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Poet-at-Large (Literary biography)
Southern Illinois Univeristy Press, 1983.
Kenneth Patchen (Literary biography) Twayne Series, G.K.Hall
Publishers, 1978
—FILMS—

[Two docu-drama video programs, written, co-directed and co-produced with Tom
Koba;
funded through Ohio Humanities Council and Ohio Arts Counci.]
James Wright's Ohio (30 minutes, 1986-1987)
Kenneth Patchen: An Art of Engagement (30 and 45 minutes, 1987-1988)
DVD double program:
d.a.levy: Cleveland Rebel Poet of the Mimeograph
Revolution
(Interview with Ed Sanders/ Memorial Reading at levyfest 2005).

—Editorship—
Book co-editor
for:

Come Together:
Imagine Peace
with Ann
Smith and
Philip
Metres
(2008)

Cleveland Poetry
Scenes: A
Panorama and
Anthology
with Mary E.
Weems and Nina
Freedlander
Gibans (2008)

d.a.levy & the
mimeograph
revolution
with Ingrid
Swanberg
(2007)

Family
Matters:
Poems of Our
Families
with Ann
Smith
(2005)

America Zen:
A Gathering of
Poets
with Ray
McNiece
(2004)

Also:
Working Hard for the Money: America's Working Poor in
Stories, Essays, Poems and Photos
with Mary E. Weems (2002);
Writing Work: Writers on Working-Class Writing (1999);
Getting By: Stories of Working Lives (1996);
Coffeehouse Poetry Anthology (1996);
In Buckeye Country: Photos and Essays (1994);
A Red Shadow of Steel Mills: Photos and Poems (1990).
Managing Editor of Heartlands: A Magazine of Midwest Life and Art.
(1998-2008)
All Above Titles Available Through Bottom Dog Press

The Long
River
Home: A
Novel

by Larry
Smith

Click Here
to Hear the
Author
Read
an Excerpt
from this
Chapter

The boy lies there waiting a long time smelling the
spring earth, till he hears them go, footsteps through
underbrush. This other song of loving and longing can
wait. The birds return bringing with them memories
of his grandfather—their fishing together, working at
his side, scoring the baseball games, talking on rides
to the lumberyard. These are not gone.
He breathes in and out. Memories remain. He closes
his eyes to an image of his grandfather’s face which
fades into that of his father. He lies there alone
staring up through trees till the morning clouds seem
to still and he and the earth move under them. And in
the green leaves dancing with life above him, he sees
the broken parts of sunlight and sky as a sign of
something deeper, something more. His grandfather’
s loss, this sense of distances, and this new longing
he feels for love—is all part of life’s change.
Everything is deparitng and everthing is arriving.
He rises knowing that he stands in a grace of the
land and the woods that remain. As he begins his
slow walk down that familiar valley, he looks out
over the river and hills and feels in blood and
memory what holds him. The great river runs through
this deep valley, and its waters will rise and fall again
and again, creeping into houses bringing mud and
decay, a dampness over all while we retreat in
rainfall. Then the sun will come and the waters
recede as we reclaim our lives again. Down the hill is
home and the people I love.

978-1-933964-30-0
(hard cover) 240 pgs.
$22.00

978-1-933964-31-7
(perfect bound) 240 pgs.
$16.00

A River
Remains:
Poems by
Larry Smith.

A WordTech
Editions Selection
from Word
Communications, Inc.
252 pages

(Poems read on
Writers'
Almanac, NPR)

THE
BONDS OF
WORK

“We’ll
get the
job
done,”
I tell my
daughter
on the
phone
and
hear my
father’s
voice,
all his
life
turning
work to
love and
honor.
“We’ll get
the job
done”—not
perfection
but carry
through, and
I recall
the long
hours of
getting
his tools
holding
flashlights while
he lay
on cardboard
beneath the car
fixing brakes
and starters,
changing oil
because he
could,
because we
needed
milk and
bread.

When
married, he’d
help us move
each time
not
stopping
till the beds
were up in
each
bedroom—
his hands
red from lifting,
turning
wrenches
on appliances,
thinking his way
through.
And he’d
follow
our U-
Haul
back,
return with me
and
sandwiches,
my wife
making
the kids’
beds,
Mom
serving
coffee in
paper cups,
only then
could
we sit
and rest.

I give
back
now this
work
for my
children
grown and
wed,
helping them
know their
grandfather’s
love by
the
work
he bred.

Faces
and Voices:
Tales

by Larry
Smith

1-933964-04-9
Paperback 136 pgs.
$12.00

From "Blue
Moon
Drive-In"

  “What’s the story?” That’s what he used to say, my old
man. As he entered our room, Monopoly game spread
out, records playing loud, “Okay, what’s the story here?”
We thought it was pretty obvious, but we knew too that
he’d been talking with Mom, hearing her complain about
“this shiftless bunch.” We never had any answer, never
really knew what that meant—“the story.” What was
that—a lie, the secret, the way things happened, what
they all meant? What we’d do is make up some excuse
for what we must have done wrong. Sometimes he would
offer hints: “What’s the story on the grass cutting, boys?”
  “Oh, yeah, Dad, it was kinda raining all morning, and
then we had to run to the store down town to get the
ground meat for the spaghetti sauce.”
  David might jump in, “This afternoon we studied the
catechism for Reverend Taylor’s class. You know we’re
joining the church next Sunday.” Great touch.
  “Okay,” Dad would say, walking away. “Just get it
done before Sunday.”

  I started thinking of it at night, lying in bed awake
hearing David snore. There were all these kinds of
stories. Each of us could tell many from one incident—
how the window got broken, how the dog got loose,
where the socket wrench set got to. And my story would
only be part of it even for me. We edit as we speak, you
know. Tomorrow I’d tell a different story, and none of it
would be lies, and all of it would. . . .

"In Larry Smith’s Faces and Voices, the
work of telling stories is the work of both
healing wounds and shaping the world....
After you read these stories, you will take
a closer look at the waitress who refills
your coffee, the man who cashes your
check at the bank, the couple in the car
that passes you on the secondary
highway. What these monologues, letters
and phone calls share is an urgency;
with only the bare truth to guide them,
Smith’s characters struggle to make
some sense in the world, and through
telling their stories, they succeed. " -
Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of Q Road

From MILLDUST
AND ROSES:
MEMOIRS

INSIDE
THE NOISE

Yes, there were
coal mines, and
steel mills, and
factories. All of
them grinding
away at the
edge of things–
thin shudder of
the earth that
we lived with,
echoing roar of
river inside the
hills.

It grew
inside us.

It was the sound of a
furnace under the
floor shaking the
boards at our feet.
Men and women
who worked long in
it dissolved to
deafness, began to
speak with hands.
Those who lived
along its edge
learned to turn away.

Birds stood on
fence posts,
without any
necks, or flitted
close to the
ground.
Open any
window, close
any door, it was
there, a slow and
steady rain that
fell over
everything. It was
a death rattle
there in our chest,
and our lives
were clothes
hanging out on
the line without
rest.

Everyone
knew but no
one spoke.

Beyond
Rust
Stories
by Larry
Smith

A novella set in
industrial
Lorain, Ohio,
four personal
esays,
and six short
stories set in
industrial
Ohio River
Valley.

"I like Beyond
Rust and find it
very
affecting—
Good, strong
language and a
big heart
shining
through."
-Sy Safransky, ed.
Sun Magazine
156 pgs.
9780933087392

STEEL
VALLEY:
POSTCARDS
AND LETTERS
[Pig Iron
Press
1992]

(letter
poems)

Letter from
FRANCO--WHEELING, 1920

Rosa, the
people
here grow
grass
instead of
tomoatoes--Americans,
they got
the hair
without
the brains.
I am
living with
friends in
a room
mostly
working and
sleeping.
Also I
have a
little
garden
between the
railroad
and the
river.
I salt
the soil
with my
sweat,
and
listen to
the
music in
the
water.
I sit
on a
rock at
dusk,
think of
a dark
eyed girl
who is
brushing
her hair
in a nightgown
before a mirror.
Maybe a
goat
rattles its
bell
in the
yard,
and she
looks out
to the
east.
When I
look up

so
gently it
is
raining.