J. Michael Martinez received the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets and he is a Ph.D. Candidate in Literature at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His latest book, from the University of Arizona Press, is In the Garden of the Bridehouse. He is the Poetry Editor of NOEMI Press and his poetry has been anthologized in Ahsahta Press’s The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral, Rescue Press’s The New Census: 40 American Poets, and Counterpath Press’s Angels of the Americlypse: New Latin@ Writing.