Milldust and Roses: Memoirs [Paperback]

Larry Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2002

Cultural Writing. This new book by the publisher of Bottom Dog Press is a memoir of a midwest town and family, a time and place, and a life. "It is Smith's simple directness, human scale, and respect for reality that makes his MILLDUST AND ROSES such a sweet, kind, modest, touching, and unassuming book" -- 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" -- Holly Beye.

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

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 149 pages
• Publisher: Ridgeway Press (February 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564391140
• ISBN-13: 978-1564391148
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,091,853 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Larry Smith is a native of Mingo Junction, Ohio, in Appalachia's Panhandle region of the Ohio River Valley. Smith has worked as a steel mill laborer, a high school teacher, a college professor, and a writer and editor. A graduate of Mingo Central High School, Muskingum College, and Kent State University, he is the author of seven books of poetry, a book of memoirs, four books of fiction, two biographies of authors Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Kenneth Patchen, and two books of translations from the Chinese.
Now a professor emeritus of Bowling Green State University's Firelands College, he is the director of the Firelands Writing Center there and of Bottom Dog Press. Smith has received an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council, and a Fulbright Lectureship in American Literature to Italy. The author is a requested speaker on creative writing, publishing, American Transcendental writers, Zen Buddhist writings, and working-class literature.
Smith is the father of three adult children, and is married to Ann Smith a family counselor and professor emerita of Nursing at the Toledo University of Ohio. Most recently he is the author of THE FREE FARM: A NOVEL the Working Lives and Appalachian Writing Series from Bottom Dog Press and a pictoral history of his hometown Mingo Junction in the Images of America series from Arcadia Publishing. His books include:

The Free Farm: A Novel (Bottom Dog Press, 2011)
Mingo Junction: Images of America Series (Arcadia Publishing 2011)
Tu Fu Comes to America: A Story in Poems (March Street Press, 2010)
The Long River Home: A Novel, Working Lives Series 2009
The Kanshi Poems of Taigu Ryokan, translations 2009
Faces and Voices: Tales. 2006.
A River Remains: Poems. 2006.
Milldust & Roses: Memoirs. 2005.
Thoreu's Lost Journal: Poems. 2001.
Kenneth Patchen: Rebel Poet in America (Biography). 2000.
Chinese Zen Poems: What Hold Has This Mountain? translations 1998.
Working It Out (novel) 1998.
Beyond Rust: Novella and Stories. 1995.
Steel Valley: Postcards and Letters (Poems). 1992.
Ohio Zen Poems with d. steven conkle (A Twinbook). 1989.
Across These States (Journal Poem). 1985.
Scissors, Paper, Rock (Prose Poems). 1982.
Echo Without Sound (Poems with Etchings by Stephen Smigocki). 1982.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Poet-at-Large (Literary biography). 1983.
Kenneth Patchen (Literary biography). 1978.