Larry Levis was born in Fresno, California, in 1946. He published several collections of poetry, including Wrecking Crew (1972), which received the United States Award from the International Poetry Forum; The Afterlife (1977), which won the Lamont Poetry Prize; and The Dollmaker’s Ghost (1981), winner of the Open Competition of the National Poetry Series. His other honors include a YM-YWHA Discovery Award and three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Fulbright and Guggenheim Foundations. He taught at the University of Missouri, the University of Utah, and Virginia Commonwealth University before his death in 1996.