RUTH ELLEN KOCHER is the author of One Girl Babylon, When the Moon Knows You’re Wandering, winner of the Green Rose Prize in Poetry; and Desdemona’s Fire, winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award. Her work has appeared in various journals, including Ploughshares, Crab Orchard Review, Clackamas Literary Review, The Missouri Review, African American Review, The Gettysburg Review, and Antioch, among others. She lives in St. Louis, and teaches literature and writing at the University of Colorado.