ROSS GAY was born in Youngstown, Ohio, and grew up outside of Philadelphia. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, and Atlanta Review, among other journals. Ross is a Cave Canem fellow and has been a Breadloaf Tuition Scholar. In addition to holding a Ph.D in American Literature from Temple University, he is a basketball coach, an occasional demolition man, a painter, and a faculty member at New England College's Low-Residency MFA program.

"He cannot allow himself to forget the darkness, he is so given over to the honest and accurate rendering." - from the foreword by Gerald Stern"