Paul Smyth (31 January 1944 - 17 December 2006) was an American poet, writer, and teacher. Paul Smyth was born in Boston and raised in Holliston, Massachusetts. At the age of sixteen, he left home to hitchhike across the North America. During this time, he spent time in Mexico, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Provincetown. It was in Massachusetts that he got his first writing job as a freelancer for the New Beacon Newspaper. He studied in Harvard University's extension program with poet Theodore Morrison. He received his B.A. in 1968. Smyth was married three times, the third time to the poet Gjertrud Schnackenberg. He had two children from his second marriage.
