WHEN: Friday September 23, 2022 ~ 7:00pm.
WHERE: The Commons Theater.
WHAT: A poetry reading and conversation between father and son poets Daniel Smith and Austin Smith.
COST: FREE, Donations welcome.
Poets Daniel Smith and Austin Smith write about the rural Midwest. Their work is grounded in their shared history on the family dairy farm Daniel operated for decades, and that Austin grew up upon. This event will feature the poets sharing their poems in a conversational, back-and-forth manner, providing context and asking one another questions. There will also be time at the end for audience questions.
Daniel Smith grew up on the family dairy farm in northwestern Illinois and returned after college for a thirty-year career as a dairy farmer. Since retiring from active farming in 2008, Smith has worked as a counselor to farm families in crisis and as an agribusiness executive. His writing has appeared in literary journals nationwide, including Ocooch Mountain News. Today, he lives with his wife, Cheryl, on a small farm in the Driftless Region of southwestern Wisconsin. His latest collection, Ancestral, will be available for purchase at the reading.
Austin Smith grew up on the family farm in Illinois, as well. He has graduate degrees in poetry from the University of California-Davis and the University of Virginia. He taught creative writing at Stanford University for a decade but has recently moved to the Viroqua area. His poems and stories have appeared in numerous literary journals. His collections, Almanac and Flyover Country, will be available for purchase at the reading.
Read more: Flyover Country and
Poem-a-Day https://austinsmith.substack.com/