James Richardson’s collections of poems, aphorisms, ten-second essays, and microlyrics include For Now (forthcoming 2020); During (2016); By the Numbers (2010), a finalist for the National Book Award; and Interglacial (2004), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award—all from Copper Canyon Press. Of “Wanderer’s Night Song (II),” Richardson writes: “I fell in love with Goethe’s whisper of a poem in the first week of college and fifty years later got around to translating it.” He is the recipient of the 2011 Jackson Poetry Prize. He teaches at Princeton University. (updated 2/2020)