Year of the Dog

and a professor of creative writing and ethnic studies at Columbia University

Recent works that have left their mark on mine: Don Mee Choi’s Hardly War, Martha Collins’s Blue Front, and Solmaz Sharif’s Look. And always: Gwendolyn Brooks loitering in Mississippi.

This book began to germinate during my residency at the Hedgebrook Center for Women Writers in August 2012. Special thanks to the Hedgebrook librarian,

Thanks as well to my wonderful poetry colleagues/comrades at Columbia: Timothy Donnelly, Dorothea Lasky, and Shane McCrae.

Grateful acknowledgment to Columbia University’s Office of the Executive Vice President of Arts and Sciences Division of Humanities’ “War & Peace Initiative” Grant that supported the completion of this book.

Melissa Montero at AP Images and Daniel Boland at Getty Images provided valuable assistance with acquiring photographic images and permissions.

Split This Rock for awarding “Walls and Mirrors, Fall 1982” 3rd Place in the Sonia Sanchez-Langston Hughes Poetry Contest; RHINO Poetry Journal for awarding “Lightening” Runner-Up for the RHINO Founders Prize.

nominating “A Rock and A Hard Place” for a Pushcart Prize;

Adanna Literary Journal:

The New York Review of Books.