RL Swihart: "I try never to think of myself as one person.  I'm not static.  For this reason, and also because I like the "mask of literature" (i.e., what part of this work is him? what part total fiction?), I'm not altogether comfortable with or keen on bios.   Yet all of my work is extremely autobiographical. Two extremes are embodied in me: the desire to be known and the need for anonymity. Go figure. Vitals stats: Born: Jackson, Michigan; DOB: Sept. 24, 1959; Education: variable and ongoing: Engineering (Univ. of Michigan), Theology (Grace Theological Seminary), Near Eastern Languages/Culture, and Education (UCLA). Rilke's semi-proof of an afterlife.  I paraphrase: the lifelong sense of   "I'm still learning and therefore any sense of completion must come postmortem." My beautiful family represents my femine side: my wife: Ania; and my two girls: Katia (4 yrs) and Nadja (8 mths). My current residence: Long Beach, California. My passions: reading, writing, and travel. My current mission: teaching math to inner-city Los Angelinos (Thomas Jefferson High School, Los Angeles, CA.). Influences: mostly dead guys: Samuel Beckett, Max Frisch, Thomas Mann, Tolstoy, Nabokov, Rilke, et al. Credits thus far: Little Brown Poetry  (www.littlebrownpoetry.com), Pigs 'N Poetry (currently on their e-zine: www.english.uwosh.edu/wolfangel/).   And soon to be on two other ezines: Electric Acorn (out of Dublin, Ireland) and In Posse.  A recurrent dream: being elsewhere."