Gerald Early was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1952. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and received his Ph.D. in English and American literature from Cornell in 1982. He is currently professor of English and director of the African and Afro-American Studies Program at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Early received the National Book Critic's Circle award for his book The Culture of Bruising. In 1988, his collections of essays, Tuxedo Junction, was awarded the $25,000 Giles Whiting Writer's Prize. How the War in the Streets Is Won is his first book of poems.