Acknowledgments
Thank you to the editors of the journals, anthologies, and sites where poems from this book first appeared: the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, The Ampersand Review, The Awl, Bat City Review, Birdfeast, The Book of Scented Things (Literary House Press), Boston Review, Columbia: A Journal of Literature & Art, Columbia Poetry Review, Conduit, Connotation Press, Gulf Coast, Handsome, Into Quarterly, Linebreak, Matter: A (Somewhat) Monthly Journal of Political Poetry and Commentary, Narrative, PEN America Poetry Series, Prairie Schooner, A Public Space, Southern Humanities Review, Still Life with Poem (Literary House Press),Washington Square Review, and Whole Terrain.
Many thanks to Shane McCrae for selecting the poems constituting the third section of this book for the Essay Press Chapbook Contest Series and to the editors of Essay Press for publishing them under the title The Resemblance of the Enzymes of Grasses to Those of Whales Is a Family Resemblance.
Love and thanks to Heather Abel, Suzanne Buffam, Kris Delmhorst, Noy Holland, Elizabeth McCracken, Jane Miller, Srikanth Reddy, Betsy Wheeler, and Dean Young for their encouragement and suggestions; to Erika Blumenfeld for her exquisite work and permission to use some of it here; to Michael Wiegers and everyone at Copper Canyon Press for their passion and expertise; to the friends who keep company in and around these poems; to my family for the sustenance of their love and support; and to David for making it all possible.