Michael Trocchia grew up in West Hempstead, New York. He lives now in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, where he teaches philosophy and works in the library at James Madison University. His poems and prose have appeared in journals such as Asheville Poetry Review, Baltimore Review, Black Sun Lit, The Boiler Journal, Caketrain, Chicago Quarterly Review, Colorado Review, Heavy Feather Review, Mid-American Review, New Orleans Review, Tar River Poetry, Tarpaulin Sky, UCity Review, and The Worcester Review. Poems recently featured in Arion, The Bitter Oleander, The Chattahoochee Review, and The Midwest Quarterly. Work is forthcoming in Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume IX: Virginia (Texas Review Press).