His first book of poetry, Impure, was a finalist for several national literary awards, among them the Academy of American Poets Walt Whitman Award, the National Poetry Series prize, and the White Pine Press Poetry Prize. His other books include Out of the Howling Storm: The New Chinese Poetry, Laughing Lost in the Mountains: Selected Poems of Wang Wei (with Willis Barnstone and Xu Haixin), The Art of Writing: Teachings of the Chinese Masters (with Chou Ping), and several textbooks about world literature. His poetry, translations, essays, and fiction have appeared in dozens of literary journals, from The American Poet Review to Agni. He lives in California.