I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, exploring this Cowtown's bipolar culture: its punk rock clubs and art museums, its honky tonks and coffee houses. I believe this environment helped me develop an appreciation for the nuances and complexities surrounding the concept of “place.” I grew to seek the mash-up, the limerick inside the sonnet, the Dadaist at the cowboy poetry festival. Naturally, I fell in love with haibun: the melding of prose and verse, the narrative and the lyrical, the modern and the timeless.
I earned a B.A. in English and psychology from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in technical communication from Texas Tech University. I currently work as an editor and writer for an educational publishing company.
My poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming in The Louisville Review, Bayou Magazine, AGNI, Chiron Review, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. My haiku and haiga were included in the anthology Lifting the Sky: Southwestern Haiku and Haiga (Dos Gatos Press, 2013). I have presented and discussed poetry on panels at the University of Mississippi's Southern Writers/Southern Writing Conference, Tarleton State University's Langdon Review Arts Festival, and Oklahoma State University's Graduate Humanities Conference.
In 2008, I was invited to participate in the Blanton Poetry Project, a collaboration between the University of Texas English department and the Blanton Museum of Art, one of the largest university art museums in the world. As a participant in the project, I composed ekphrastic poems for paintings in the Blanton's permanent collection to be displayed alongside the works in the museum.
Also in 2008, along with Ken Fontenot and Paula Mendoza-Hanna, I served as co-editor of the Austin International Poetry Festival's annual anthology, di-verse-city. In this role, I was lucky enough to have the chance to publish many remarkable writers including the phenomenal Ilya Kaminsky.
I live in Texas with my beautiful wife Shannon and my three amazing children.
I earned a B.A. in English and psychology from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in technical communication from Texas Tech University. I currently work as an editor and writer for an educational publishing company.
My poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming in The Louisville Review, Bayou Magazine, AGNI, Chiron Review, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. My haiku and haiga were included in the anthology Lifting the Sky: Southwestern Haiku and Haiga (Dos Gatos Press, 2013). I have presented and discussed poetry on panels at the University of Mississippi's Southern Writers/Southern Writing Conference, Tarleton State University's Langdon Review Arts Festival, and Oklahoma State University's Graduate Humanities Conference.
In 2008, I was invited to participate in the Blanton Poetry Project, a collaboration between the University of Texas English department and the Blanton Museum of Art, one of the largest university art museums in the world. As a participant in the project, I composed ekphrastic poems for paintings in the Blanton's permanent collection to be displayed alongside the works in the museum.
Also in 2008, along with Ken Fontenot and Paula Mendoza-Hanna, I served as co-editor of the Austin International Poetry Festival's annual anthology, di-verse-city. In this role, I was lucky enough to have the chance to publish many remarkable writers including the phenomenal Ilya Kaminsky.
I live in Texas with my beautiful wife Shannon and my three amazing children.
Awards and Honors
• Winner, Poetry Society of Texas's Catherine Case Lubbe Manuscript Contest for This Geography of Thorns (judged by Adam Tavel), 2019
• Second place, United Haiku and Tanka Society Samurai Haibun Contest for "Burr Clover Blues" (judged by Glenn C. Coats), 2019
• Winner, Fort Worth Poetry Society and Poetry Society of Texas's William D. Barney Memorial Chapbook Contest for What Happens When We Leave (judged by Diane Glancy), 2018
• Dos Gatos Press's Featured Poem for June 2016 ("Hill Country Hesperides")
• Dos Gatos Press's Featured Poem for June 2014 ("It Don't Matter Who's in Austin")
• Honorable mention, Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational Sakura Awards for an untitled haiku, 2014
• Second place, Dos Gatos Press's Texas Poetry Calendar Awards for "Prayer for a Calf" (judged by Barbara Ras), 2012
• Winner, Dos Gatos Press's Texas Poetry Calendar Awards for "Waiting Inland for the Hurricane" (judged by Cyrus Cassells), 2011
• Second place, United Haiku and Tanka Society Samurai Haibun Contest for "Burr Clover Blues" (judged by Glenn C. Coats), 2019
• Winner, Fort Worth Poetry Society and Poetry Society of Texas's William D. Barney Memorial Chapbook Contest for What Happens When We Leave (judged by Diane Glancy), 2018
• Dos Gatos Press's Featured Poem for June 2016 ("Hill Country Hesperides")
• Dos Gatos Press's Featured Poem for June 2014 ("It Don't Matter Who's in Austin")
• Honorable mention, Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational Sakura Awards for an untitled haiku, 2014
• Second place, Dos Gatos Press's Texas Poetry Calendar Awards for "Prayer for a Calf" (judged by Barbara Ras), 2012
• Winner, Dos Gatos Press's Texas Poetry Calendar Awards for "Waiting Inland for the Hurricane" (judged by Cyrus Cassells), 2011