University of Arkansas Press Anthology Celebrates 50th Anniversary of Influential Literary Journal

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Don’t Leave Hungry: Fifty Years of Southern Poetry Review

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The University of Arkansas Press’s Don’t Leave Hungry: Fifty Years of Southern Poetry Review, edited by James Smith and with a Foreword by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins (paperback $24.95; cloth $54.95), brings together the best poems published in this influential literary journal.

Founded in 1958 by Guy Owen, the anthology charts the development of the journal decade by decade, making clear that although it has close ties to a particular region, it has consistently maintained a national scope, publishing poets from all over the United States. Southern Poetry Review’s goal has been to celebrate the poem above all, so although there are poems by major poets here, there are many gems by less famous, perhaps even obscure, writers too.

After reading more than 2,000 poems, James Smith selected 183 poems by nearly as many poets, from A.R. Ammons, James Dickey, Mark Doty, Claudia Emerson, David Ignatow and Carolyn Kizer to Ted Kooser, Maxine Kumin, Denise Levertov, Howard Nemerov, Charles Wright, the University of Arkansas’ Miller Williams, and the Press’s Poetry Series editor, Enid Shomer.

In his Foreword, Collins writes that “this golden anniversary collection provides us with a generous overview of the various shapes American poetry has taken over the past half century. ... [It] contains poets who have become household names, at least in households where poetry is admitted.”

Lee Smith, an award-winning and best-selling novelist and short story writer, says that “No reader will leave this harvest table hungry — here is nourishment for all. ... These poems epitomize their eras yet move beyond, rise beyond as poetry always does, capturing time and place and lived life in a way no other art can manage.”

Noted poet Jane Hirshfield, who was honored with an Academy Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets for distinguished poetic achievement, says that “this superb selection from an enduring, flagship journal holds work by many of our most indispensable poets and, remarkably often, what went on to become their signature poems.”

James Smith is associate professor of English at Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, Ga., and associate editor of Southern Poetry Review. Billy Collins is one of America’s best-selling poets. The University of Arkansas Press published his first book, The Apple That Astonished Paris, in 1988; his most recent collection is Ballistics: Poems.