JOE WEIL was born and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey. At the age of twenty he dropped out of Rutgers and became a toolmaker in order to help out his family. Weil remained a toolmaker for twenty years while writing and publishing his poems, building a reputation on the New Jersey/NewYork poetry scene. He is now an instructor in the graduate and undergraduate creative writing departments at SUNY, Binghamton. His previous books include In Praise We Enter, A Portable Winter, and The Pursuit of Happiness.