Thursday, August 7, 2025: Michael Dwayne Smith's "Do You Remember the Last Stars of Visalia?"
Michael Dwayne Smith is the author of five books, including a forthcoming poetry collection, Shaking Music from the Angry Air (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, September 2025); his work haunts many literary houses, including Heavy Feather Review, ONE ART, Third Wednesday, New World Writing Quarterly, decomP, Heron Tree, Gargoyle, Monkeybicycle , and Star 82 Review . He's a recipient of the Hinderaker Poetry Prize, the Polonsky Prize for fiction, and several Pushcart Prize/Best of the Net nominations. He lives near a Mojave Desert ghost town with his family, rescued horses, and Calamity the California calico cat. Do You Remember the Last Stars of Visalia? We took a Greyhound up Route 99, chugging through San Joaquin Valley, the day overtaken with haze and drizzle, past lingering rolls of farmland, graffitied bridges, little Tipton’s railroad ghosts, knots of trees tied to the Tule Rivers, through Tulare, small fieldhand towns dotted with pickups and boots and cantinas, us chatting up the ...