David Rivard is the author of six previous books, including Standoff, Sugartown, Wise Poison, and Torque. His work has won the PEN/New England Prize in poetry, the James Laughlin Prize from the Academy of American Poets, and the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, and he has been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Among his other honors are fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. In 2006, he was given the O.B. Hardison Poetry Prize by the Folger Shakespeare Library in recognition of both his writing and teaching. He lives on the coast of Maine.