David Kirby is the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English at Florida State University. He is author or co-author of more than twenty books, most recently a collection of poetry, The Ha-Ha (LSU, 2003), and a volume of essays, What Is a Book? (Georgia, 2002). His work appears frequently in the Best American Poetry and Pushcart Prize anthologies, and was recently awarded a Guggenheim fellowship.

Also In VQR

• Chekhov's Influence on Shakespeare
• What Is A Book?
• What Is A Writer?
• The New Candide Or What I Learned In the Theory Wars
• Mental Health In High Office: Psychological Problems, Political Cures
• Waiting for A Critic Who Does Not Exist
• Everything Is Real, But Some Things Are More Real Than Others
• Who's In Charge Here?
• Jim Der Trapper and Other Heroes of the Old West
• America on the Couch