Dave Smith (Cyclopedia of World Authors)
Dave Smith’s parents, Ralph Gerald Smith and Catherine Mary Cornwell, were both from working-class families, their ancestors the farmers and coal miners of Virginia and Maryland. The work ethic by which Ralph Smith was able to lift his family into the suburban middle class undoubtedly left its impression on the son, but there was no precedent for the boy’s future in poetry. Dave Smith read widely as a teenager, but he cites Hot Rod magazine and rock and roll, especially rhythm and blues, as influences on his sense of language that were no less significant than the classics of...
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