David Swanger has published four books of poetry, two chapbooks, and poems in various anthologies and journals. His awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council. His most recent book, Wayne’s College of Beauty (2006), won the John Ciardi Poetry Prize.

Marvin Bell’s recent books include Vertigo: The Living Dead Man Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2013 )and Whiteout (Lodima Press, 2011), a collaboration with photographer Nathan Lyons. The selections from “If & When” in this issue continue Bell’s poetic correspondence with Christopher Merrill, earlier exchanges from which were collected in After the Fact: Scripts & Postscripts (White Pine Press, 2016).