JOHN WOOD is a well-known poet and photographic critic whose books in both fields have won major awards. His first book, Orbs, carried an introduction by Allen Ginsberg. His next two books of poetry, In Primary Light and The Gates of the Elect Kingdom, both won the Iowa Poetry Prize of the University of Iowa Press and were followed by his Selected Poems 1968-1998. He co-curated the landmark Smithsonian Institution exhibition Secrets of the Dark Chamber, is editor of The Journal of Contemporary Photography, and held professorships in both English literature and photographic history at McNeese State University in Louisiana, where he also served as Director of the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing for over twenty-five years. He now lives in Vermont.