Lance Larsen, poet laureate of Utah and a professor at BYU, is the author of four poetry collections: Genius Loci (2013), Backyard Alchemy (2009), In All Their Animal Brilliance (2005), and Erasable Walls (1998). Individual poems have appeared in Slate, New York Review of Books, Orion, Paris Review, Poetry, Georgia Review, Ploughshares, TLS, Best American Poetry 2009, and elsewhere.  His essays also appear widely, three of which have been listed as notables—in Best American Essays 2005, 2009, and 2013.

Pants down, garage door up: how alike the sensation of exposure.

In triumph or despair, pet a cat.

Theory is a leaky cup.

To climb a new mountain, wear old shoes.

Wonder is the yeast of the imagination.

Fraud or Freud: for seven drafts not even my spell check could tell the difference.