Yusef Komunyakaa, March 2008

Yusef Komunyakaa is the author of 12 books of poetry, among them Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems, which won the Pulitzer Prize. His Thieves of Paradise and Talking Dirty to the Gods were finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and other honors include a Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the William Faulkner Prize from the Université de Rennes, the Hanes Poetry Prize and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.