David Lee was raised in West Texas, a background he has never completely escaped, despite his varied experiences as a seminary student, a boxer and semi-pro baseball player (the only white player to ever play for the Negro League Post Texas Blue Stars) known for his knuckleball, a hog farmer, and a decorated Army veteran. Along the way he earned a Ph.D., taught at various universities, and recently retired as the Chairman of the Department of Language and Literature at Southern Utah University. Lee was named Utah's first Poet Laureate in 1997, and has received both the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Award in Poetry and the Western States Book Award in Poetry. Lee received the Utah Governor's Award for lifetime achievement in the arts and was listed among Utah's top twelve writers of all time by the Utah Endowment for the Humanities. He is the author of twenty books of poetry. In 2004, So Quietly the Earth was selected for the New York Public Library's annual "Books to Remember" list. His latest is Last Call (Wings Press, 2014). In 2014, Lee was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Arcane Letters.