William Jay Smith was born in Winnfield, Louisiana. He received his secondary education in St. Louis and graduated from Cleveland High School in 1935; then came a distinguished academic career highlighted by a 1939 B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis, followed by an M.A. in French (1941) from the same school, as well as studies in France and England, where he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford (1947-1948). During World War II he served as a liaison officer aboard a Free French naval vessel. The early postwar years established him as an important translator through his publication of the works of Valéry Larbaud (1955) and Jules Laforgue (1956). Smith's impressive literary career includes such positions as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (1968-1970), poetry reviewer for Harper's (1961-1964), and several appointments at American universities as poet-in-residence and professor of English. In addition, he has served a...