A descendant of Italian and French Canadian immigrant grandparents, he was introduced to poetry in high school by his sister, who brought him books by Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and other Beat poets from the local library; he started writing his own poems shortly thereafter.
He spent a year as Writer-in-Residence and Hallie Ford Chair of Creative Writing at Willamette University; in 2006 he retired from teaching.
He was widely published from early on in his career, and over the years his work has appeared in more than 100 magazines and more than 40 anthologies.
As an editor he co-founded the literary journal Abraxas and the Cincinnati Poetry Review, as well as sitting on the editorial board of Ithaca House.
He participated in two of Charles Potts’s Poetry Parties in Walla Walla, WA, and wrote the introduction for A Visit to the Ranch[4] (2015), by klipschutz (pen name of Kurt Lipschutz), a collection that featured numerous poems inspired by Potts.