Rick Alley is a professor at Tidewater Community College. His poems have appeared in Willow Springs, Mid-American Review, Mudfish, Poetry East and Graffiti Rag. He is the winner of both the Academy of American Poets/Joseph Langland Award (U. of Massachusetts) and the Plainsongs Poetry Award. His book, Talking Book of July, was published in 1997 by Eastern Washington University Press. (2001)