Thomas R. Smith has had hundreds of poems published on three continents. In the United States, his poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. His poems were included in Editor's Choice II, a selection of the best of the American small press, and in The Best American Poetry 1999. His work has reached wide national audiences on Garrison Keillor's public radio show Writer's Almanac and former US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser's syndicated newspaper column, "American Life in Poetry." He is author of seven books of poems, Keeping the Star, Horse of Earth, The Dark Indigo Current, Winter Hours, Waking Before Dawn, The Foot of the Rainbow, and The Glory. A chapbook of nature poems, Kinnickinnic, appeared in 2008 from Parallel Press. He has edited Walking Swiftly: Writings and Images on the Occasion of Robert Bly's 65th Birthday and What Happened When He Went to the Store for Bread, a selection of the best of the Canadian poet Alden Nowlan, now in its second edition. His poetry criticism has appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Great River Review, Ruminator Review, and other periodicals. He is a Loft Foreword Program poetry instructor at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. He and his wife, the artist Krista Spieler, live in River Falls, Wisconsin.