William Jay Smith (22 April 1918 – 18 August 2015) was an American poet. He was the 19th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1968 to 1970.
William Jay Smith was born in Winnfield, Louisiana. He was raised in Jackson Barracks, Missouri. Smith studied at Washington University in St. Louis.
Smith married Barbara Howes in 1947. They had two children. Howes and Smith divorced during the mid-1960s. As of 2008, he lived in two houses, one in Cummington, Massachusetts and the other in Paris.
Smith died in Lenox, Massachusetts at the age of 97.