Poet, author, and Bellarmine University English professor Frederick Smock was named Kentucky’s Poet Laureate in May and is eager to do the job. I spoke with Smock about his duties, inspirations, and he read some of his work. You can listen to our conversation in the player above.
With Smock's permission, the two poems he recites in the conversation are below.
The Forest
Every forest has a central tree
One the whole forest leans on
You may not be able to find it
it lives deep in the heart
it may even have fallen years ago
But its memory is that strong
Camera Obscura
Others boys built centrifuges,
stone polishers, water wheels.
My boy chose a camera obscura
for the fall-term science fair.
He crawled under a blanket
with pencil, paper, pinhole,
and doodled what he saw
in his eye’s mind – lunar seas,
a subtlety of shadows in
the ferocity of a September sun.
When he emerged, blinking,
he held the moon in his palm,
an ancient medallion also worn
by Aristotle, and Anthemius of Tralles.
Both of these poems are from the collection "The Bounteous World," published by Broadstone Books.
