Dave Etter is really two poets--or rather two sensibilities in one poet. Like the corn he features in his rural Illinois landscapes, Etter is a hybrid, a cross between Robert Browning and Emily Dickinson. In this respect he is something of an anachronism: postmodern poetry, because of its diversity of form and content, usually depends on the unified and unifying sensibility of the poet. Etter's two sensibilities correspond roughly to the roles of national and regional poet, and though his consciousness is split, he is clearly a student and champion of regionalism.

Though his family roots are in northern Illinois, David Pearson Etter was born in Huntington Park, California, on 18 March 1928, to Harold Pearson Etter, the manager of an industrial gas distributorship, and Judith Goodenow Etter. He came to the Midwest at the age of eighteen and attended the University of Iowa, where he earned a B.A...