Celestial Joyride

Michael Waters’ books of poetry include BOA Editions titles Gospel Night (2011),Darling Vulgarity (2006finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize), andParthenopi: New and Selected Poems (2001finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize), as well asBountiful (1992), The Burden Lifters (1989), and Anniversary of the Air (1985) from Carnegie Mellon University Press. He has co-edited several anthologies, includingContemporary American Poetry (Houghton Mifflin, 2006) and Perfect in Their Art: Poems on Boxing from Homer to Ali (Southern Illinois University Press, 2003). Shoestring Press in the UK publishedSelected Poems in 2011. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, includingPoetry, American Poetry Review, Paris Review, Yale Review, Kenyon Review, Southern Review, Georgia Review, Gettysburg Review, andRolling Stone. In 2004, he chaired the Poetry panel for the National Book Award. The recipient of five Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fulbright Foundation, the Ledig-Rowohlt Foundation, and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Waters teaches at Monmouth University and in the Drew University MFA Program in Poetry and Poetry in Translation.