Four Poems by Ray Smith

My grandfather, Ray Smith did so many incredible things in his lifetime (honored as poet laureate of Minnesota, received the Silver Star in WWII for rescuing several wounded men from behind enemy lines, only to return home and face blacklisting for his deep support of farmer labor unions and connections with the American Socialist Party, among so many other things. I so rarely see the recognition he deserves. Thank you for honoring him.

In 2014 the staff of the Superior Public Library remembered your grandfather’s birthday by posting on Facebook a note, a poem, and a photo.

And on the front of the library’s 1977 “Summary Report” leaflet the staff remembered him by printing a quotation from his “Book selection and the community library," an essay published in 1963:

The library's highest calling now is to be a microcosm of the coming united states of man, representing as it should all times and places and creative voices. Let us as librarians prove active legislators in our republic of free communion and communication; and equally, at the same time, preservers of the American tradition founded in humane experiment, who know and say that such a republic could not exist under authoritarian government of either Left or Right. Let us be interpreters for the redeeming ministry of books.

The URL for the poems is now this:

https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/AXAWZIPZG7KB6K8Q/pages/ACTE27H4TZ6JK38U

or this:

https://web.archive.org/web/20210524034027/http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/WI/WI-idx?type=article&did=WI.v23i4.RSmith&id=WI.v23i4&isize=M

Hi - I'm looking for information about a poet named Ray Smith who was from Minnesota and published poems in the 1970s. He was my grandmother's cousin. He wrote The Yellow Wallpaper and dedicated it to their grandparents. If anyone has information, you can post here or reach me at andreanelsen1 at gmail.com Thank you!