Newton Smith featured at Coffee with the Poets and Writers in Hayesville, NC

Coffee with the Poets and Writers meets Wednesday, November 16, 10:30 a.m. at the Moss Memorial Library in Hayesville, NC. 

 

This month Dr. Newton Smith  retired professor at Western Carolina University will share his experience of walking El Camino de Santiago, the 500 mile pilgrimage in Europe. Smith wrote a poem a day reflecting on the physical body, nature, and the spiritual as he traversed the Way.

His book is Camino Poems—Reflectionson on the Way. "Because it was autumn, many days I gleaned blackberries, grapes, apples, figs, peaches and other fruit and chestnuts along the way. It meant that my attention was focused on the abundance of this earth instead of on my narrow self and its minor concerns. My attention often fell on butterflies, snails, ant hills and the abundance of rocks,” Smith said.

Poetry has been an essential part of Newton Smith’s life for more than fifty years. Wanting to write poems was what motivated him to leave Georgia Tech and major in English at UNC Chapel Hill. After a three-year tour in the Army as a Russian linguist, he returned to UNC for his Ph.D. 

In graduate school he was one of the founding editors along with Russell Banks and William Matthews of Lillabulero Magazine and Lillabulero Press, then one of the significant publications of the small press movement. His dissertation was The Origin of the Black Mountain Poets, one of the earliest studies of that movement. 

He has taught poetry to a wide range of writers, from second grade to retirees as well as undergraduates and graduate students. He has published widely in literary magazines beginning in the 1970’s, including Southern Poetry Review, Carolina Quarterly, Ann Arbor Review and others. His most recent poetry publications are in the Asheville Poetry eview, Rivendale, Main Street Rag, Pisgah Review, and Jonah. 

Bring a couple of original poems or a short prose piece for open mic which is a special part of the event. You will find a receptive audience. Join the group for lunch at Angelo’s on the square.