Joel Lewis’s latest book, My Shaolin, is a book-length poem that serves as a psychogeographic investigation of the southernmost portion of the New York Archipelago, Staten Island. According to poet/anthologist Trace Peterson “This commuter poem evokes big questions such as: what do we really take away from an experience of place in language, are we always just visiting and do we ever really get there?” Previous books include:  North River Rundown (2013), Surrender When Leaving Coach (2012), Learning From New Jersey (2007), Vertical’s Currency (1999) and House Rent Boogie (1992), winner of the second (and last) Ted Berrigan Memorial Award. He edited Bluestones and Salt Hay, an anthology of contemporary NJ poets, as well as editing Reality Prime, the selected poems of Walter Lowenfels and On The Level Everyday, the selected talks of Ted Berrigan.  A social worker by day, he has taught creative writing at the Poetry Project, The Writer’s Voice and Rutgers University. And, for better or worse, he initiated the ill-fated New Jersey Poet Laureate position that was such a headache for Amiri Baraka. With his wife, Rutgers University cinema professor Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, he resides in Hoboken