Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

Kim Addonizio (born in Washington, D.C.) is a poet and fiction writer known for her blues-inflected, formally accomplished poetry that engages desire, mortality, the body, and the pleasures and sorrows of ordinary life with unflinching directness and humor. She studied at George Mason University. Her collection Tell Me (BOA Editions, 2000) was a finalist for the National Book Award. Other major collections include What Is This Thing Called Love (Norton, 2004) and Mortal Trash (Norton, 2016). She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. She co-authored with Dorianne Laux the widely used craft book The Poet's Companion (1997). She lives in Oakland, California.

Dorianne Laux (born in Augusta, Maine) is a poet known for her frank, emotionally powerful poems about working-class life, sexuality, violence, and survival. She worked as a sanatorium cook, maid, and gas station attendant before pursuing poetry. She received her MFA from the University of Oregon and teaches in the MFA program at North Carolina State University. Her collections include Awake (BOA Editions, 1990), What We Carry (BOA, 1994), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and The Book of Men (Norton, 2011), which won the Paterson Poetry Prize. She has received an NEA Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement.