Michael Ryan is the author of three previous books of poetry. Threats Instead of Trees won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award and was a National Book Award finalist in 1974; In Winter was a National Poetry Series selection in 1981; and God Hunger won the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize in 1990. He is also the author of A Difficult Grace, a collection of essays, and a memoir, Secret Life. His new memoir was excerpted in The New Yorker and will also appear this spring. Ryan is a professor of English and creative writing at the University of California, Irvine.
