David Bottoms is the author of seven books of poetry and two novels; his new book, Working the Heavy Bag, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press. Among his many awards are the Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets, the Levinson Prize from Poetry, an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, an Ingram Merrill Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. He holds the Amos Distinguished Chair in English Letters at Georgia State University and serves as poet laureate of Georgia. (updated 6/2009)