Editorial Reviews
Review
"Milldust and Roses" is a poetic but bittersweet account of growing up in an eastern Ohio steel mill town. The town's residents, like the residents of many Mahoning Valley communities, were a varied ethnic mix from eastern and southern Europe. . . . The first section, the most interesting of the book, deals with his life until his graduation. Though Smith is only 59, he writes about a world that is almost gone now, a world where small towns were still vibrant and alive. - Youngstown VINDICATOR (April 14, 2002)
A Town and Family--A Time and Place--A Life Story“Milldust and Roses is a beautiful tapestry, the substance of which describes an Ohio
Valley working-class family from the mid-century onward. Larry Smith is an
accomplished poet, teacher, and biographer. But these memoirs are not about his life as a
poet, but about the metamorphosis of self and family life in the urban Midwest as he has experienced it. The book is formatted like a family album with wonderful prose snapshots illustrating the town, his growing family, his wife and himself— .” — Holly Beye
“It is Smith’s simple directness, human scale, and respect for reality that makes Milldust
and Roses such a sweet, kind, modest, touching, and unassuming book.... It is his simple pride in being ‘common’ that most touches me about this book and most informs its sweet modesty.”
— David Budbill
“Milldust and Roses is a beautiful tapestry, the substance of which describes an Ohio
Valley working-class family from the mid-century onward. Larry Smith is an
accomplished poet, teacher, and biographer. But these memoirs are not about his life as a
poet, but about the metamorphosis of self and family life in the urban Midwest as he has experienced it. The book is formatted like a family album with wonderful prose snapshots illustrating the town, his growing family, his wife and himself— .” — Holly Beye
“It is Smith’s simple directness, human scale, and respect for reality that makes Milldust
and Roses such a sweet, kind, modest, touching, and unassuming book.... It is his simple pride in being ‘common’ that most touches me about this book and most informs its sweet odesty.” — David Budbill
Review
On Steel Valley: Postcards & Letters (poems)
“He lets us overhear the private griefs and joys of immigrants old and new...in what
becomes a kind of chorus of working class America. Smith stands on the back stoops and
front porches reading over the shoulders of folk caught up in the paradoxes of Americans
‘so lost and at home with their lives.’”
-Richard Hague, author of Milltown Natural
On Working It Out (novel)
“Smith’s skill as a poet enables him to develop through compelling imagery, this story of
man’s reaching for and finding that he has the courage and self-acceptance needed to
stand by the people he loves and to make a good life for himself and his family.”
-Edwina Pendarvis, Small Press Review
On Kenneth Patchen: Rebel Poet in America (biography) “It has taken more than
twenty-five years for this great poet’s underground lift to see the light of day in this rich,
thorough, compelling biography.”
-Norbert Blei
On Scissors, Paper, Rock (prose poems)
“Smith’s poetic prose covers a range of events common and uncommon. He tells stories
of love, sleep, farms, and birth. . . . His words and ideas are natural and enjoyable.”
-Ohioana Quarterly
Milldust and Roses: Memoirs
Milldust and Roses: Memoirs,Larry Smith,Ridgeway Press,1564391140,American - General,Biography & Autobiography,Biography / Autobiography,Biography/Autobiography,General,Literary,Biography & Autobiography / Literary,Ohio, Midwest,working-class; memoirs
Book Contents:
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