Friends of the UNCG Libraries

Tom Kirby-Smith has donated a collection of modern poetry books and established the Noel and Tom Kirby-Smith Poetry Fund in the University Libraries at UNCG. UNCG Dean of Libraries Rosann Bazirjian says of the gift: “We are excited to receive this impressive collection. Our students and faculty will also appreciate the alcove space being planned on the third floor of the Jackson Library Tower to house it. That area will be a comfortable place to read and reflect on these volumes. We are especially grateful for an endowment that will allow us to continue to add to the collection and to preserve these valuable books of poetry.” Noel Callow Kirby-Smith came to Greensboro in 1968 as one of the first Randall Jarrell fellows in UNCG's graduate Writing Program. A graduate of St Xavier College in Chicago, she had already published poems in The Sewanee Review and The Denver Quarterly written during the five years she taught reading and English in Chicago Catholic and public grade s...

Mr. Tom Kirby-Smith has been elected chairperson of the Friends of the UNCG Libraries and to a new term on the Board of Directors. He was elected at the recent annual meeting of the Friends, which featured a presentation by authors Lee Smith and Hal Crowther. Mr. Kirby-Smith, who taught at UNCG for many years, was an early editor of the Greensboro Review. He is also the author of several books, including a guide to U.S. observatories, a book on the philosopher George Santayana, a book that examines free verse poetry and one on the emergence of poetry from music. His poetry and essays have been published in the Southern Review, the Sewanee Review, the Virginia Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, Poetry (magazine), the Mountain Goat, the Southern Poetry Review, Ploughshares, and the Hudson Review. He has served on the board of editors of Versification. His chapbook of poems, The Musical Constellations, was published by Unicorn Press in 2007. Among his former students is Claudia Emerson,...