Eric McHenry is a seventh-generation Kansan and a fifth-generation graduate of Topeka High School. A past poet laureate of Kansas, he teaches English at Washburn University. His three books of poetry include Potscrubber Lullabies, which received the Kate Tufts Discovery Award; Mommy Daddy Evan Sage, a collection of children’s poems illustrated by Nicholas Garland; and Odd Evening, a finalist for the Poets’ Prize. His poems have appeared in The Threepenny Review, The New Republic, The Yale Review, The Times Literary Supplement, Field, Cincinnati Review, The Independent, Poetry International, and Poetry Northwest, from whom he received the Theodore Roethke Prize. His essays and criticism have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The American Scholar, The Boston Globe, Slate, The San Francisco Chronicle, Parnassus: Poetry in Review, and The Baffler.