James Brock
Fort Myers, FL

James Brock's most recent book of poetry is nearly Florida, and his poems recently appear in Caffeine Destiny and storySouth. For his poems, he has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Alex Haley Foundation. Currently he teaches at Florida Gulf Coast University, in Fort Myers, where he lives with his spouse and their two lovebirds on the banks of the Caloosahatchee River - there, he enjoys birding, dance, and film. Mercifully, Miami is but a two-hour drive away for his other enjoyments in life. Influencing his poetry these days are Miss Peggy Lee, Dean Martin, Denise Duhamel, and Joan Didion.

The poems in Sunspinner are a part of a sequence based on a road trip I took with my son in the summer of 2002; in fact, some of the lines are from his journals, and he should receive credit as well. Carson Brock is an 8th grader at Meigs Middle School in Nashville, Tennessee. In his spare time, Carson plays soccer and video games, wrestles, and is currently training the family dog, Tanna.