GERRY LAFEMINA’s books include 23 Below, Shattered Hours: Poems 1988-94, Zarathustra in Love, and Graffiti Heart, which received the 2001 Anthony Piccione Prize in Poetry from MAMMOTH Books. The Parakeets of Brooklyn, received the 2003 Bordighera Prize in Poetry, and was published in a bilingual English-Italian edition. LaFemina’s fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in Colorado Review, Nimrod, Quarterly West, Connecticut Review, and in the anthology American Poetry: the Next Generation. LaFemina is currently an assistant professor and director of the Frostburg Center for Creative Writing at Frostburg State University.