I was raised in a rural, southern Ohio town of about 3,500 people. A first generation college graduate, I eventually earned an MFA and PhD, living for a time in California and later Texas. Presently, I work at a community college as an adjunct instructor in composition and creative writing. My work has appeared in a variety of places, including Protean, Prolit, Glass, KR Online, West Branch, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. In addition, my first collection of poems, A Dark Address, has just been released as a free PDF here on Gumroad.com. I am nearly finished with a second manuscript called Interrogation Days, focusing on empire, post-2016, the legacy of the Iraq War, and other lethal abuses of intelligence and imagination.Among other poetic projects, I intend to publish a series of essays on contemporary poetics, publishing, and socialism. Over coming weeks and months, I'll be posting excerpts from all these works on my blog at rmhaines.com.