Frederick Smock is a graduate of Georgetown College and the University of Louisville. From 2017–18, he served as Kentucky’s poet laureate. He’s a professor of English and director of creative writing at Bellarmine University in his native Louisville, where he also serves as faculty advisor to Ariel, the friendly English society. For 15 years he edited The American Voice, an international literary journal whose editions are housed in the Duke University Archives.

Smock has published a dozen books of poems and essays, most recently Book of Earthly Delights, from Larkspur Press, and On Poetry: Palm-of-the-Hand Essays from Broadstone Books. Nationally, his work has appeared in the Iowa Review, Hudson Review, Poetry (Chicago), Southern Review, Poetry East, Shenandoah, American Poetry Review, Arts & Letters, Antioch Review, Bloomsbury Review, and many others. Internationally, his work has appeared in Russkya Mysl (Russia), Dublin Poetry Review (Ireland), Olivier (Argentina), Art-Interpres (Sweden), and others.