After serving in the US Air Force as an aircraft crew chief, Michael Mack worked a variety of factory and labor jobs before returning to school and graduating from the Writing Program at MIT.
Mack has performed at the US Library of Congress, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, the Columbia Festival of the Arts, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, the Austin International Poetry Festival, and Off-Off-Broadway at the Times Square Arts Center.
His work has aired on NPR, and has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), America, the Beloit Poetry Journal, Cumberland Poetry Review, and is featured in Best Catholic Writing 2005.
Mack has also performed at scores of venues for consumers and providers of mental health services, including McLean Psychiatric Hospital, the national conference of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), and for faculty and students of the Harvard Medical School and Yale Medical School.
Awards include an Artist's Grant for new theater works from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, First Prize in the Writers Circle National Poetry Competition, and an Eloranta Fellowship, which funded a residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre for the Arts in Ireland.
Mack lives in the Boston area, supplementing his work as a poet and performer with assignments as a freelance writer.
Biographical Information: Jared R.W. Smith
Jared Smith is a prominent figure in contemporary poetry, technology research, and professional continuing education. Having earned his BA cum laude and his MA in English and American Literature from New York University, he spent many years in industry and research. Starting in 1976, he rose to Vice President of The Energy Bureau, Inc. in New York; relocated to Illinois, where he became Associate Director of both Education and Research for an international not-for-profit research laboratory (IGT); advised several White House Commissions on technology and policy under the Clinton Administration; and left industry in 2001, after serving as Special Appointee to Argonne National Laboratory.
He is the author of nine volumes of poetry: Looking Into the Machinery: The Selected Longer Poems of Jared Smith (1984-2008,) (Tamarack Editions, PA, 2010;) Grassroots (Wind Publications, KY, 2010;) The Graves Grow Bigger Between Generations (Higganum Hill Books, CT, 2008;) Where Images Become Imbued With Time (Puddin'head Press, IL, 2007;) Lake Michigan and Other Poems (Puddin'head Press, IL, 2005;) Walking the Perimeters of the Plate Glass Window Factory (Birch Brook Press, NY, 2001;) Keeping the Outlaw Alive (Erie Street Press, IL, 1988;) Dark Wing (Charred Norton Publishing, NY, 1984;) and Song of the Blood: An Epic (The Smith Press, 1983.) He has also released two CDs of his work: Seven Minutes Before the Bombs Drop (ArtVilla Records, TN, 2006;) and Controlled by Ghosts (Practical Music Studios, IL, 2007.)
Jared has had hundreds of publications in literary journals across the nation over the past 30 years, in addition to several foreign countries. He has published reviews of the works of such major contemporary poets as Ted Kooser, C.K. Williams, and W.S. Merwin, as well as several craft interviews, including one with Ted Kooser that was translated into Chinese for republication in Taiwan and Mainland China. Jared's work has also been adapted to stage in both New York and Chicago.
Jared Smith's poems, essays, and literary commentary have appeared in The New York Quarterly, Confrontation, Spoon River Quarterly, Kenyon Review, Bitter Oleander, Small Press Review, Greenfield Review, Vagabond, The Smith, Home Planet News, Bitterroot, Rhino, Ibbetson Street Press, Wilderness House Review, After Hours, Poet Lore, The Pedestal, Second Coming, The Partisan Review, Somerville News, Coe Review, U.T. Review, The Iconoclast, Trail & Timberline, and many others. He has also been on National Public Radio and Pacifica. He has given readings, workshops, and classes at colleges, schools, libraries, and coffee houses around the country.
While at NYU, Jared studied under poet/critic M.L. Rosenthal, Library of Congress Adviser Robert Hazel, and founder of The New York Quarterly William Packard. He has served as a member of the Screening Committee and on the Board of Directors of The New York Quarterly under founding Editor William Packard, as well as being a current member of its Advisory Board under Raymond Hammond; as coordinator of readings at two Greenwich Village coffee shops in the 70s; as a Guest Columnist for Poets magazine and Home Planet News under Editor Don Lev; as Guest Poetry Editor for two issues of The Pedestal under Editor John Amen; and as Poetry Editor of Trail & Timberline.
Jared Smith is a member of Colorado Poets Center, The Colorado Poets Association, The Academy of American Poets, Illinois State Poetry Society, and The Chicago Poets' Club, and past President of Poets & Patrons in Chicago. He is listed in Marquis Who's Who In America, among other reference works, and has been listed among the authors in Poets & Writers Directory since its inception.