Ryan Patrick Smith received his BA in English from Transylvania University and MFA in poetry from the University of Missouri – St. Louis. His poetry was runner-up in the 2015 Boston Review Poetry Contest and semi-finalist in the 2015 92Y “Discovery” Poetry Contest, and his poems appear or are forthcoming in the Kenyon Review, DIAGRAM, and Salt Hill, among others. He is a native of Kentucky, and he teaches in the MFA program at Lindenwood University.