ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom Roby left Virginia by way of Colgate University, earning a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Chicago and a NEH fellowship to study Socrates. He spent the next three decades teaching Humanities in Chicago's City Colleges, while continuing educational research on curriculum deliberation and organizing international conferences on classroom discussion. He has published and performed his poetry in many venues in Chicago, while leading workshops, writing criticism, and winning various awards. He is President of the Poets' Club of Chicago, and chairs their annual sonnet contest. He has created The Poetry Wheel in which poets serially relate their poems. Smoke and Mirror Productions selected his poems about The Grin Reaper, Grim’s funnier brother, for performances at The Loop Theater in April 2004. Tom was ChicagoPoetry.com's Poet of the Month for National Poetry Month, April 2006. A member of the National Association for Poetry Therapy, he makes presentations based on his chapbook, Griever's Circuit (Fractal Edge Press, 2004) that mourns the death of his wife, Mary. He and his son, multi-instrumentalist, Lem, comprise Omniphonic, a performance poetry duo.