Biography;

Poet; university professor of English.  Born– February 11, 1950, Falkville, Alabama. Parents– E. Lavon and Wilda Owen Jones.  Married– Virginia Kremza, 1972 (divorced 1979); married Gloria Nixon de Zepeda, 1981.  Children– two.  Education: University of Alabama,B.A., 1971; University of North Carolina–Greensboro, M. F. A., 1973.  Writer-in-residence, Virginia Intermont College, 1978-84; professor of English, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, 1984– .  Contributed poems to journals and anthologies. Member of advisory panel on literature, Illinois Arts Council.  Associated Writing Programs Award Series, 1980; Lavan Younger Poets Award, 1986; Jean Stein Prize, 1989; National Book Critics Circle Award, 1989; Kingley Tufts Poetry Award, 2007.

Source:

Contemporary Authors online.

Publications;

Apocalyptic Narrative, and Other Poems.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 1993.

Elegy for the Southern Drawl.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 1999.

Going Ahead, Looking Back.  Knoxville, TN: Southbound Books, 1977.

Imaginary Logic.  Houghton Mifflin, 2011.

Kingdom of the Instant.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 2002.

Salvation Blues:  One Hundred Poems, 1985-2005.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

The Story they Told us of Light.  University of Alabama Press, 1980.

Things that Happen Once: New Poems.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996.

Transparent Gestures.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 1989.

The Unborn.  Boston:  Atlantic Monthly Press, 1985