My thanks go out to the editors of the following publications in whose pages several sections of this book have appeared: The Best American Poetry of 1998, The Breadloaf Anthology of Comtemporary American Poetry, DoubleTake, The English Record, The Iron Horse Literary Review, The Kenyon Review, TriQuarterly, Water-Stone.
I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to the Illinois Arts Council, the Lannan Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts for financial assistance that made the writing of these poems possible.
I am indebted to Ilya Kaminsky, Philip Levine, and Gerald Stern for suffering this book at various stages, to Thom Ward, editor at BOA Editions, for his close reading and untiring support of this work, and to Anthony Piccione for his relentless insistence on Being-in-the-Word. And to all of my family for keeping the circle whole.