Night Angler

Dear Boy: Let the record show we invented
one another: family—a lighted story
set against the shadow and dawn of distances.

Thank you to the University of Arkansas’s Fulbright College of Arts & Sciences, especially to my colleagues in the Department of English.

The New Yorker: “The Fidelity of Water”;

San Pedro River Review: “What I Mean When I Say Harmony (I)” [Pushcart Prize nomination];

Italicized portions of this poem come from F. Douglas Brown’s “Body Stubborn,” which appears in his collection Zero to Three (U of Georgia P, 2014).

Once again, my heartfelt gratitude to Peter Conners and the staff at BOA Editions for your insightful editorial touch and your commitment to both poetry and poet.

And a special shout-out to my people from the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Translation—your support and friendships enriched both the process and the vision of writing this book.

winner of the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets

winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize and a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Finalist.

Other honors include the Anne Halley Poetry Prize, the Dogwood Prize in Poetry, the Wabash Prize for Poetry, nominations for the Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from Bread Loaf, Cave Canem, and the Vermont Studio Cente