John Beer is the author of The Waste Land and Other Poems (Canarium Books, 2010), winner of the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America, a chapbook, Lucinda (Spork Press, 2013), and the full-length verse novella of Lucinda, published by Canarium Books in 2016. He is also the editor of a selection of Robert Lax's poems, published by Wave Books in 2013. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

"Few things are sacred, few places are safe, and few poets can convey the unsettling burden of their responsibility as engagingly as Beer—the rare poet who strives (in the Berrigan-esque 'Sonnets to Morpheus') 'to prove I’m more than the sum of my mirrors,' and somehow succeeds. " —Michael Brodeur, Boston Globe

"The real nerve, the daring outrageous heart of this book, is not in its title but in its range beyond irony. In spite of an apparent claim to cool detachment, this is a passionate and watchful book, full of the most amazing engagements." —Bin Ramke, Norma Farber First Book Award Judge's Citation

"Only a genius could write a book called The Waste Land and Other Poems.  Well, John Beer is that person.  'I set out to write a treatise on failure, and it turned out my subject was love,' he writes. 'Call it my confusion.' We should all be so confused." —John Ashbery