John Allman has recently completed his seventh poetry collection, Lowcountry, from which these poems were taken and a selection from which is currently featured as an electronic chapbook in Mudlark. His six other books of poetry include Loew’s Triboro (2004, which contains poems first published in Blackbird), Curve Away from Stillness (1989), Scenarios for a Mixed Landscape (1986), and Clio's Children (1985), all from New Directions; Inhabited World: New & Selected Poems 1970-1995 (The Wallace Stevens Society Press, 1995); and Walking Four Ways in the Wind (Princeton, 1979). Allman is the author of a short story collection, Descending Fire & Other Stories (New Directions, 1994), and is at work on a new book of short stories, A Fine Romance, which will include a short story originally published in Blackbird.

The recipient of two Pushcart Prizes as well as a fellowship in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Helen Bulls Prize from Poetry Northwest, Allman’s poems, stories, and essays have been widely published in such journals as The American Poetry Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The Antioch Review, The Massachusetts Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, the North Dakota Quarterly, Paris Review, Poetry, Poetry International, The Quarterly, and The Yale Review, as well as the online journal Full Circle. Allman holds an MA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University and is now retired from teaching. He lives in Katonah, New York, and spends his winters on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.