As United States Poet Laureate (1997-2000), originator of The Favorite Poem Project, and contributor to The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, ROBERT PINSKY has been a powerful advocate for raising public awareness of poetry’s place in our lives. The author of six books of poetry: Jersey Rain (2000); The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems 1966-1996 (1996), which won the 1997 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; The Want Bone (1990); History of My Heart (1984); An Explanation of America (1980); and Sadness and Happiness (1975), his many honors include the Lenore Marshall Award, the William Carlos Williams Prize, and National Endowment for the Arts and Guggenheim Foundation fellowships. He is currently poetry editor of the weekly Internet magazine Slate. A native of Long Branch, New Jersey, he teaches in the graduate writing program at Boston University, and lives in Newton Corner, Massachusetts.