Guggenheim Fellow, chosen by Lucille Clifton for a Villa Montalvo Literary Arts Award, author of 30 books, including Four Incarnations (Coffee House Press), God is in the Cracks and The Collected Poems (now in its 2nd printing), married to visual artist Gloria K. Alford... Born on the Jewish North Side of Chicago, bar mitzvahed, sailor, amnesiac, university professor (Cornell, Iowa, Connecticut College), newspaper editor, food reviewer, father of five children, husband to four wives, my writing career has been described by critic Virginia Lee as a "long and winding road."

Noted in Poets & Writers as a "bridge person" between traditional literary publications (Hudson Review, Poetry Chicago, Antioch Review...) and some of the first (c. 1980s) online literary eZines (Doug Lawson's Blue Moon Review, Mike Neff's Web Del Sol, J.J. Webb's Zero City, etc.). Serving now as contributing editor to Web Del Sol and other online publications... new book forthcoming from Red Hen Press (Los Angeles). Contributor to Bedford Introduction to Literature; Michael Meyer's Poetry: An Introduction; Nicholas Delbanco & Alan Cheuse's Literature: Craft & Voice, McGraw-Hill textbook / anthology, 2009.