Contributors' Notes

MASTHEAD

Directors

DeWitt Henry

Peter O'Malley

Coordinating Editor for This Issue

Bill Knott

Prose Editor

Mary Karr

Managing Editor

Jennifer Rose

Office Manager

Don Lee

Thanks this issue to:

Louisa Solano, Becky Shipp, Claudia Keelan, Bethanne T. Elion, and Kathleen Bowden.

CONTRIBUTORS

Ai's latest book,
Sin, was published in 1986 by Houghton Mifflin. This fall, she's been a Visiting Poet at Assumption College and Holy Cross.

Marvin Bell's
New and Selected Poems came out from Atheneum this year. He lives in Iowa City and Port Townsend, Washington.

Gottfried Benn (1886-1956) was a doctor of venereal and skin diseases who brought to poetry the realism of the hospital, a benchmark of early expressionism. After early endorsement of Nazism, he was rejected by the Nazis (and vice versa) for what they termed his "Kulturbolshevism." He then entered into what he called "inner emigration."

Michael Biggins is a professor of Slavic languages at Knox College, Illinois.

Sven Birkerts is the author of
An Artificial Wilderness: Essays in Twentieth Century Literature, published by William Morrow.

Star Black's poems have appeared in
APR and
Boulevard and are forthcoming in
Poetry New York.

Karen Brennan's first book of poems will be published by Wesleyan University Press in 1988.

Melissa Brown, a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, is currently working toward a Ph.D. in English at the University of Iowa.

Rebecca Byrkit has worked most of her adult life in taverns or nursing homes and is currently directing a performance series in Tucson, Arizona.

Andrea Cohen attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She has fiction forthcoming in
The Iowa Review and poetry in
The Denver Quarterly and
The Montana Review.

Martha Collins's first book of poems,
The Catastrophe of Rainbows, was published by Cleveland State in 1985. She is the director of creative writing at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.

Mary Cross teaches at the University of Illinois and at Loyola in Chicago. Her work has appeared in
APR, Ironwood and
The Madison Review and is forthcoming in
Ascent.

Michael Cuddihy has poems in recent or forthcoming issues of
Prairie Schooner, Pequod and
Virginia Quarterly Review.

Stephen Dobyns's most recent book of poems is
Cemetery Nights and his most recent novel is
A Boat Off the Coast. He teaches at Syracuse University and in the M.F.A. Program at Warren Wilson College.

Dennis Ding (Ding Tingsen), a native of southwest China, is an instructor of English at Guizhou Normal University. His translations of Eliot, H.D., Frost, Pound, Williams, Hemingway and others have appeared in numerous Chinese publications. He is currently a visiting scholar at Oakland University in Michigan.

Denise Duhamel's poems have appeared in
The Massachusetts Review, The Nebraska Review, Soundings East and elsewhere. She lives in New York City and teaches at Baruch College.

Elaine Equi is the author of three books of poetry:
Federal Woman, Shrewcrazy and, most recently,
The Corners of the Mouth, published by Iridescence Press. She teaches poetry at Chicago's Columbia College.

Gao Fa-lin is a graduate of Wuhan University and a member of the Chinese Writers Association. He has published three anthologies of poetry and has been awarded the National Prize for Poetry.

Linda Gregg is living in western Massachusetts finishing her new book. Her previous books are
Too Bright to See (Graywolf) and
Alma (Random House). She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Whiting Award.

Joy Harjo is an assistant professor in English at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
She Had Some Horses is her most recent collection of poetry. She has just completed a new manuscript called
In Mad Love and War.

Seamus Heaney's new book is
The Haw Lantern, from Farrar, Straus & Giroux. He edited
Ploughshares 6/1 and 10/1.

Erica Jong is the author of numerous books of poetry and fiction, including
Fruits & Vegetables, Fear of Flying, and most recently,
Serenissima.

Wesleyan University Press released Mary Karr's first book of poems,
Abacus, this fall.

Claudia Keelan's work has appeared in
Ironwood and
The Sonora Review. She teaches at Northeastern University and Boston College.

Bill Knott, editor of this issue, teaches creative writing at Emerson College. He is the author of six books, most recently
Becos (Random House, 1983).

Nancy Lagomarsino's book of prose poems,
Sleep Handbook, appeared last spring with Alice James Books.

Margitt Lehbert is an M.F.A. graduate in translation from the University of Iowa. She is an assistant editor for
Poetry World and has translated widely from the German.

Lyn Lifshin has published more than 70 books and chapbooks. She has edited a series of books of women's writing,
Tangled Vines from Beacon Press,
Ariadne's Thread from Harper & Row, and a book of women's memoirs.

Thomas Lux, editor of
Ploughshares 1/4 and 11/1, teaches at Sarah Lawrence College. His most recent book is
Half Promised Land from Houghton Mifflin.

Ginny MacKenzie teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Her poems have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including
The Nation, The Iowa Review and
Shenandoah. She is the author of
By Morning.

Kevin Magee's poems have appeared in
The Antioch Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Pavement 7 and elsewhere. He lives in Iowa, where he is involved in support work for the Socialist Workers Party.

Paul Mariani's most recent book of poems is
Prime Mover, published by Grove Press. Next year William Morrow will publish his
Uproars & Lamentations: The Life of John Berryman.

Martha McCollough lives and works in Belmont, Mass. She is represented by Stavaridis Gallery in Boston.

Sandra McPherson is the director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of California at Davis. Her next collection,
Streamers, will be published in the spring of 1988 by Ecco. She received an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters this year.

Steffen Mensching is a popular young East German poet. He works as an actor and clown and has recently toured East Germany with an opera on which he collaborated. He is at work on his third volume of poetry.

Michael Milburn works in the Wood-berry Poetry Room at Harvard.

Barbara Molloy-Olund's
In Favor of Lightning was published by Wesleyan University Press this fall.

Edward Morin has published both his translations and his own poems widely. He has taught at four U.S. universities, most recently Wayne State University.

Karen Ohnesorge-Fick received her M.A. in Creative Writing from New York University in 1986 as a Phi Beta Kappa Fellow. She teaches at colleges in Overland Park and Ottawa, Kansas.

Sharon Olds is teaching at Brandeis, New York University and Goldwater Hospital (on Roosevelt Island in New York City). Her latest book,
The Gold Cell, came out this year from Knopf.

Mary Oliver received the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for
American Primitive. Her most recent book,
Dream Work, was published last year by Atlantic Monthly Press.

Wesleyan University Press published Gregory Orr's
New and Selected Poems this fall. He teaches at the University of Virginia.

Bob Perelman is the author of seven books, most recently
The First World (The Figures, 1986) and
To the Reader (Tuumba, 1984), and editor of
Writing/Talks (SLU Press, 1985).

Robert Polito's poems and criticism have appeared in
The New Yorker, Yale Review, Shenandoah, The Boston Review and
The Boston Phoenix. He is co-editor of
Fireworks: The Lost Writings of Jim Thompson, which will be published in February.

Craig Raine, subject of this issue's feature, is the author of three volumes of poems as well as the libretto for an opera,
The Electrification of the Soviet Union, which received its world premiere at Glyndebourne in October, 1987, under the direction of Peter Sellars, with music by Nigel Osborne. In January, 1988, Jonathan Miller will produce Raine's "1953," a version of Racine's
Andromaque, at London's Old Vic.

Robin Reagler grew up in a one-stoplight Arkansas town where her parents run a general store. Now she lives in New York. In conjunction with her writing she also paints, mostly pictures of bridges and things underwater.

Donald Revell is the author of two poetry collections:
From the Abandoned Cities (Harper & Row, 1983) and
The Gaza of Winter, scheduled to appear in early 1988 from the University of Georgia Press.

Sarah Rosenblatt was raised in Milwaukee and received her M.F.A. from Brooklyn College. She has been published in
The Brooklyn Review, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal and elsewhere. She likes to paint in alleys.

Karl Rosenquist is at work on a Master's degree in English at the University of Florida. This is his first publication.

Jerome Sala is the author of
Spaz Attack (STARE Press),
I Am Not a Juvenile Delinquent (STARE), and
The Trip, forthcoming from Highlander Press.

Slovenian poet Tomaz Šalamun has been visiting the U.S. from Yugoslavia on a Fulbright Grant during the last year. His
Selected Poems (translated by Charles Simic and edited by Robert Haas) will appear this winter from Ecco Press.

Lloyd Schwartz, editor of
Ploughshares 5/2, is the author of
These People (Wesleyan) and co-editor of
Elizabeth Bishop and Her Art (Michigan). He teaches creative writing at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and reviews classical music for
The Boston Phoenix, Vanity Fair and
Fresh Air (National Public Radio).

R. D. Shipp has received grants from the Shifting Foundation. She has been teaching at Northeastern University this fall.

Jim Simmerman's first book of poems,
Home (Dragon Gate, 1983), was a Pushcart Writer's Choice selection. His second book,
Once Out of Nature, will be published by Galileo Press in the fall of 1988. He teaches at Arizona University in Flagstaff.

Charles Simic's latest book of poems is
Unending Blues from Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. He edited
Ploughshares 12/3.

Michelle Blake Simons is a student at Harvard Divinity School. She lives in Watertown, Mass., with her husband, Dennis McFarland, and their daughter.

Gary Soto's
Lesser Evils, occasional essays, is due from Art Publico/University of Houston in late spring 1988.

After a year of teaching at Boston University, John Tarver has returned to his hometown, Baton Rouge, to attend school. He has completed a poetry manuscript and his most recent endeavor has been a novel about snake-handlers.

Rebecca Weiner's poems have appeared in numerous magazines, including
Poetry, Intro, The Seneca Review and
Pequod. She teaches English at Manhattan Community College.

Mona Van Duyn has been the recipient of a National Book Award and The Bollingen Prize. This past spring she received the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. She is finishing a seventh book of poems.

Peter Viereck's seventh book of poems,
Archer in the Marrow, recently appeared from Norton. His awardwinning translations from the German are from his manuscript
Double Star: The Oscillating Orbits of Steffan George and Georg Heym. Greenwood Press recently republished his Pulitzer Prize-winning poems,
Terror & Decorum.

Apologies to Gordon Jackson whose contributor's note was inadvertently left out of our last issue. He teaches in Minnesota. Recent short stories of his appear in
Sudden Fiction: American Short-Short Stories and
Western Humanities Review.