Until recently, my book seemed wholly personal, a clandestine effort I strove at alone. Although the manuscript is preoccupied with public forms of documentation—newspaper articles, museum archives, online obituaries—I needed structured secrecy to make the work. Now, however, with an official publication date on the calendar, I feel myself moving out of that seclusion. My manuscript will soon take physical form, and that form will multiply. A public investment from the National Endowment for the Arts gives lie to the notion that my poems belong only to me. Rather, my writing has been formed and upheld by friends, family members, ancestors, teachers, peers—and now by the NEA. Thanks to this fellowship, I’ll be able to travel with my book next year, sharing it with others in a way I never could have foreseen. And, most essentially, the grant provides me with material means to protect that private space from which poetry comes.