RELEVANT BACKGROUND:    Mark Cox                                                  (b. 1956, East St. Louis, Illinois)

• Seven volumes of poetry:  Barbells of the Gods (Ampersand Press), Smoulder ( David R. Godine), Thirty-Seven Years from the Stone,  Natural Causes (both in the Pitt Poetry Series), Sorrow Bread (Serving House Books), Readiness and Knowing ( both Press 53); one book of edited poetry, Jack Myers’ posthumous The Memory of Water  (New Issues Press).

• 40+ year publication history in magazines such as Poetry, American Poetry Review, New Ohio Review, Poetry Northwest, North American Review, New England Review, Southern Review; Indiana Review, Crazyhorse,  and in 30+  anthologies.   

• Honors include the Whiting Writers' Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Oklahoma Book Award, The Society of Midland Authors Poetry Prize, arts grants from North Carolina, Kansas and Vermont, a Bread Loaf Writers Conference Fellowship and service as poet-in-residence at The Frost Place.

• Poems have been used on Garrison Keillor’s Writers’ Almanac, in the Academy of American Poets on-line classroom, Poetry Daily, and in a variety of other on-line media

• Invited readings and presentations at dozens of venues across 36 states

• Retired after 39 years of teaching, including Goddard College, Oklahoma State University, Vermont College of Fine Arts and the Department of Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he served as founding chair.