Peter Klappert was born in Rockville Center, New York, and grew up in West Hempstead, New York, and Rowayton, Connecticut. He attended Cornell University (B.A. 1964), originally as a preveterinary student, then as an English major with a minor in zoology; and the University of Iowa, where he earned both an M.A. in Renaissance literature (1967) and an M.F.A. (1968) for his work in the Writers Workshop. He has taught at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida; New College in Sarasota, Florida; Harvard University; and the College of William and Mary. He is currently director of creative writing at George Mason University. In 1970, he won the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition (for Lugging Vegetables to Nantucket , 1971) and since then has been the recipient of a number of awards and fellowships, including the National Endowment for the Arts Grant in 1973 and the Lucille Medwick Award of the...