Richard Shelton is Regents Professor of English at the University of Arizona. He is the author of ten books of poetry and six chapbooks. Shelton is the recipient of numerous awards, including the United States Award from the International Poetry Forum and two NEA Fellowships.

I think Shelton speaks for the need of a poet, or poetry, in the twentieth century. His metaphorical desert is the arid world of television and popular culture, of instant physical gratification. His prison is the body which demands constant pleasure and stimulation. His poetry represents a traditional strong American philosophical response to these realities. The transcendence of the body through the imagination . . . If this isn't the poetry of prophecy, I don't know what it is. America, the twentieth century, we need more of it.