H. T. Kirby-Smith

H.T.orTom Kirby-Smith(born 1938) is an American author and poet.

Life

H.T. Kirby-Smith grew up on the Cumberland Plateau, inSewanee, Tennessee.He received his B.A. fromSewaneean M.A. fromHarvardand held a WallaceStegner FellowshipatStanford,where he studied withYvor Winters.He was also aFulbrightscholar inDijon, France.He taught at theUniversity of North Carolina at Greensborofor many years, where he was also one of the founding editors of theGreensboro Review.He has published several books including a guide to U.S. observatories, a book on the philosopherGeorge Santayana,a book that examinesfree versepoetry and one on the emergence of poetry from music. His poetry and essays have been published in theSouthern Review,theSewanee Review,theVirginia Quarterly Review,Shenandoah,Poetry,theMountain Goat,theSouthern Poetry Review,Ploughshares,and theHudson Reviewand he has served on the board of editors ofVersification.His chapbook of poems,The Musical Constellations,was published by Unicorn Press in the fall of 2007. Among his former students isClaudia Emerson,the 2006 Pulitzer prize winner for poetry. His online poetry tutorials have been used widely by poetry teachers for almost a decade.

Works

• U.S. Observatories: A Directory and Travel Guide(Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1976).ISBN0-442-24450-9(cloth);ISBN0-442-24451-7(paper)
• The Origins ofFree Verse(University of Michigan Press, 1996).ISBN0-472-10698-8(cloth);ISBN0-472-08565-4(paper)
• A Philosophical Novelist:George Santayanaand The Last Puritan(Southern Illinois University Press,1997).ISBN0-8093-2113-0(cloth)
• The Celestial Twins: Poetry and Music Through the Ages(University of Massachusetts Press, 1999).ISBN1-55849-225-9(cloth)
• The Musical Constellations(Unicorn Press, 2007).ISBN0-87775-338-5(cloth)ISBN0-87775-339-3(paper)
• Tutorial on Poetic Prosody: Meter and Form[1],2001