Poetry. Robert Phillips's NOW AND THEN: NEW & SELECTED POEMS are all he wishes to preserve from five decades of writing. In the words of James Dickey, Phillips's collection of poems is "engaging, open, and accessible, his subjects painstakingly explored." Drawing from ten past books of poetry and pulling in new work, this is a collection of poems with a "wry, self-deprecating intimacy and charm... not like anyone else writing today," says Carolyn Kizer. X.J. Kennedy says, "Robert Phillips is about the only living U.S. poet who never bores me." His prizes include an American Academy of Arts & Letters Award in poetry, and he teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston, Texas.