ABOUT


I was raised in northeast Alabama, just outside of Glencoe, which is just outside of Gadsden, where my father was a steelworker, my mother a history teacher in a nearby town. I later studied Architecture and then English at Auburn University. I continued my study of creative writing and English literature at Cornell. I now live and work in Denver, Colorado, where I am presently an associate professor of English at the University of Colorado Denver. My students, colleagues, and I edit and produce Copper Nickel, and I direct the Creative Writing program.

My second book of poems, A Murmuration of Starlings, chosen by Cathy Song for the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry, has recently been published by Southern Illinois University Press. My first book of poems, Murder Ballads was published in 2005 by Elixir Press. My poems have appeared in various journals, including Blackbird, Diagram, Greensboro Review, Gulf Coast, H_NGM_N, New Orleans Review, Shenandoah, and Southern Review.

Links to samples of my work are below. For information on upcoming readings, check my blog or my readings page.