RELEVANT BACKGROUND:    Mark Cox                                                  (b. 1956, East St. Louis, Illinois)

• Six volumes of poetry:  Barbells of the Gods (Ampersand Press), Smoulder ( David R. Godine), Thirty-Seven Years from the Stone,  Natural Causes (both in the Pitt Poetry Series), Sorrow Bread (Serving House Books) and Readiness (Press 53); one book of edited poetry, Jack Myers’ posthumous The Memory of Water  (New Issues Press).
• 30+ year publication history in magazines such as Poetry, American Poetry Review, New Ohio Review, Poetry Northwest, North American Review, New England Review, Southern Review; Indiana Review, Crazyhorse,  and in 30+  anthologies.   
• Honors include the Whiting Writers' Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Oklahoma Book Award, The Society of Midland Authors Poetry Prize, arts grants from North Carolina, Kansas and Vermont, a Bread Loaf Writers Conference Fellowship and service as poet-in-residence at The Frost Place.
• Poems have been used on Garrison Keillor’s Writers’ Almanac, in the Academy of American Poets on-line classroom, Poetry Daily, and in a variety of other on-line media
• Invited readings and presentations at dozens of venues across 36 states
• Teaches for Vermont College of Fine Arts and in the Department of Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he served as founding chair.