Robert Phillips is a prominent figure in what has been called America's neglected "transition generation"--poets born in the late 1930s and early 1940s. "Spinach Days" is his sixth full-length collection, following his critically acclaimed "Breakdown Lane" (Johns Hopkins, 1994), named a Notable Book of the Year by the "New York Times." In content and in its various use of forms, "Spinach Days" is Phillips' most innovative book yet. There are long narratives and short lyrics, villanelles and somonkas, haiku and found poems, free verse and eclogues, on subjects ranging from St. Francis to the Holocaust, from Jung's concept of the "anima" to a particular bit of American folklore on the gangster John Dillinger. Throughout, the poet's memory is the cohesive force, mixing events of childhood with adulthood, rural life with big-city life, love with loss, and humorous events with tragic ones. Phillips reveals himself to be a master of closure, and he writes as one who delights in the liveliness of language and wordplay.

Robert Phillips is the author of five previous books of poetry. He is poetry editor of the Texas Review and a councilor of the Texas Institute of Letters. He teaches at the University of Houston, where he was director of the Creative Writing Program and is now a John and Rebecca Moores Scholar.