"Joyful Orphan is a book of witness: species and habitat extinction, war, poverty, technology, history, and race. In this collection, Mark Irwin attempts to find how these worlds interface and affect one another. There are many different ways to become orphaned in the contemporary world, but often it is an attempt to understand the meaning of love continuously translated into languages that one does not know"--

Mark Irwin is the author of eleven collections of poetry, including his most recently published work, Shimmer. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, The New York Times, and Paris Review. Recognition for his work includes The Nation/Discovery Award, two Colorado Book Awards, four Pushcart Prizes, the James Wright Poetry Award, the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry, and fellowships from the Fulbright, Lilly, and NEA. A professor in the PhD in Creative Writing & Literature Program at the University of Southern California, he lives in Los Angeles and rural Colorado.