Rafael Campo's poetry extends many traditions. It belongs to the large community of gay and lesbian poetry and the growing body of Latino literature written in America. A physician-poet, he is the heir of both William Carlos Williams and John Keats. He also writes from the perspective of a Catholic struggling to reconcile his faith with the conservative positions of the Catholic Church on issues such as homosexuality and birth control. Finally, Campo's expertise in such verse forms as the sonnet, the heroic couplet, and the villanelle earn him the label of "new formalist." Despite the reservations he has expressed about the movement, he did not decline inclusion of his work in the 1996 anthology Rebel Angels: 25 Poets of the New Formalism.

Campo's poetry, like his life, is drawn from diverse influences. He was born on 24 November 1964 in Dover, New Jersey. His Cuban American father was a businessman, and...