Michael Perkins is the author of six collections of poetry. The Secret Record, literary criticism, was published by William Morrow in 1976. Among his other works of fiction and nonfiction are the novels Evil Companions, Dark Matter, and Burn. His poems and essays have appeared in The Village Voice, Younger Critics of North America, The Nation, Mother Jones, Paper, Notre Dame Review, Exquisite Corpse, Big Bridge, Talisman, Rain Taxi, and American Book Review. He was the Leydig Trust's Writer of the Year in Great Britain in 2002; and he is the recipient of the 2007 Obelisk Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the 1957 Dunbar Poetry Prize.