Winner of the 1998 Richard Snyder Publication Prize, this is the sixteenth book of poems by the 1994 winner of the Poetry Society of America's William Carlos Williams Prize. Formally accomplished, with a sure sense of subject matter, David Ray is one of our more important living poets. He lived and taught for years in Kansas City, and currently lives in Tucson, Arizona. "David Ray's poetry has always been radiant even though personal tragedy has suffused it." --Studs Terkel "His writing is clean, clear, economical, and poetically attractive. But what is possibly more important is his contribution in the area of substance." --Hayden Carruth.