Austin Robert Smith (born 1982)[1] is an American poet and fiction writer.
[11] Smith has been awarded a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University, a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts,[12][13] and the Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship.
[15] Smith's poetry deals with themes including rural life, violence, and war.
Originally from rural Illinois,[15] Smith often expresses a strong tie to the Midwestern United States.
As Smith wrote in 2018, "I feel it's even more important than ever to write of this region, to identify the trends that have led to the decline of small towns and small family farms, and to celebrate the people and the land so that no reader of mine will ever think of the Midwest as flyover country again.