Alan Shapiro is the author of eight books of poetry including Tantalus in Love (Houghton Mifflin, 2005). He has received the Kingsley Tufts Award and the Los Angeles Times prize for poetry, among other honors. His collection of essays, The Last Happy Occasion (Chicago, 1996), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He teaches at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Also In VQR

• Questions for the Soul
• The Conversation
• My Tears See More Than My Eyes: My Son's Depression and the Power of Art
• Country Western Singer
• Poet
• Dentist
• Family Man