About the Translators Alfred Corn's seventh book of poems, entitled Present, appeared in 1997, along with his novel Part of His Story and a study of prosody The Poem's Heartbeat. He has published six earlier volumes of poetry and a collection of critical essays titled The Metamorphoses of Metaphor. Fellowships and prizes awarded for his poetry have come from the Guggenheim Foundation, NEA, the Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and the Academy of American Poets. He has taught at the City University of New York, Yale, the University of Cincinnati, U.C.L.A, Ohio State, and the University of Tulsa. At present he teaches in the Graduate Writing Program at Columbia. A frequent contributor to The New York Times Book Review and The Nation, he also writes art criticism for Art in America and ARTnews magazines. He lives in New York City. R. H. W. Dillard has published five volumes of original poetry (most recently Just Here, Just Now), two novels (most recently The First Man on the Sun), a book of short fiction titled Omniphobia, and four books of criticism (most recently Understanding George Garrett), in addition to numerous critical articles and a translation of Cistellaria (or The Little Box), by the Roman comic playwright Plautus. His honors include a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, a DuPont Fellowship, the Academy of American Poets Prize, and an O. B. Hardison, Jr. Poetry Award from the Folger Shakespeare Library. A graduate of Roanoke College, he received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Virginia. Since 1964 R. H. W. Dillard has taught at Hollins College, where he is currently Professor of English. X. J. Kennedy has published thirteen collections of original poetry and poetry in translation (including Dark Horses: New Poems), as well as more than a dozen books of verse for children (including Uncle Switch), and is editor, or coeditor, of several influential college textbooks on literature and writing (including The Bedford Guide for College Writers). He has studied at the University of Michigan, the Ecole Superieure des professeurs de franandccedil;ais andagrave; l'andeacute;tranger, Sorbonne, at Columbia University, and at Seton Hall University. Before turning freelance in 1977, X. J. Kennedy taught at the Tufts University, Leeds University, University of California at Irvine, Wellesley College, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Michigan. Widely recognized for his work, he is the recipient of the Michael Braude award for light verse of the Amercian Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the Los Angeles Times book prize for poetry, a Guggenheim fellowship, the Shelley Memorial Award, an NEA grant, the Lamont Award of the Academy of American Poets, and the Bess Hokin prize from Poetry magazine. Campbell McGrath has published three collections of poetry: Capitalism, American Noise, and Spring Comes to Chicago. A fourth, Road Atlas, is forthcoming, and his play, The Autobiography of Edvard Munch, premiered in 1984. His poems have appeared widely in such journals as The Ohio Review, TriQuarterly, Shenandoah, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He has won the Academy of American Poets Prize (three times), an Illinois Arts Council Literary Advancement Grant, the Pushcart Prize, the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Witter-Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress. He has taught at Columbia University, The University of Chicago, and, since 1993, at Florida International University.