John Warner Smith always sleeps with a pen and paper next to his bed.
Louisiana’s newest Poet Laureate said lines or fragments of ideas will come to him late in the evening or in the early hours of the morning, because “something always does.”
He’ll spend his term as the others have, criss-crossing the state as a literary ambassador, conducting writing workshops and readings to broaden the public’s awareness of how poetry enriches our lives.
But Smith stands out as the first African American male to be named to the two-year post. The Morgan City native often writes about the African American experience, especially coming of age during the Civil Rights era in the Deep South.
His own course to becoming a renowned poet and professor of English at Southern University has been more roundabout than most. A former secretary of labor under the late Gov. Kathleen Blanco, Smith worked in public administration for several years, including in city governments in Lafayette and Tallahassee, and even had a brief stint as a banker.
“Sometime in the early ‘90s, a window opened and poetry said, ‘Here I am,’” said Smith. “I was drawn to poetry unexpectedly. I started reading a lot of poetry and dabbling in some writing, and by the late ‘90s, I was well on my way. I didn’t know that I was a poet, but I knew that poetry was something I needed to do. I needed to write poetry.”
Smith would read and write poetry in his spare time, and eventually became so enamored with the art form that he went back to school at nearly sixty years old for a second master’s degree. “I wanted to study creative writing in a formal way,” he said. “I decided if I was really going to take this work more seriously, I needed more training.” The Poet Laureate received his MFA from the University of New Orleans in 2012, and has published four collections of poetry in the time since.
After graduating from McNeese State University with degrees in psychology and English back in the late ‘70s, Smith said he rejected the notion of teaching—but he was brought on staff at Southern in 2007, and ever since it’s been “the love of my life.” The same year, Smith founded a nonprofit, Education’s Next Horizon, dedicated to reforming public education in Louisiana.
“It’s been a journey. In all the work I’ve done, poetry has been the constant,” said Smith. “I could change jobs, but poetry was right there. It never changed. The love for poetry—the burning desire to create—it was always there. I followed my instincts and made a full circle.”
