Robert Okaji

Robert Okaji holds a BA in history, served without distinction in the U.S. Navy, toiled as a university administrator, and no longer owns a bookstore. His honors include the inaugural Shō Poetry Prize, the Slipstream Press Annual Chapbook Prize, the riverSedge Poetry Prize, the Etchings Press Poetry Chapbook Prize, and the 1968 Bar-K Ranch Goat-Catching Championship. Two years ago he was diagnosed with late stage metastatic lung cancer, which he finds terribly annoying. But thanks to the wonders of modern science, he still lives in exotic Indianapolis with his wife—poet Stephanie L. Harper—stepson, cat and dog. He is the author of Our Loveliest Bruises (3: A Taos Press, 2025), His Windblown Self (Broadstone Books, 2025), and multiple chapbooks, including Buddha's Not Talking and Scarecrow Sees, and his poems may be found in Louisiana Literature, Threepenny Review, Only Poems, Wildness, Vox Populi, Evergreen Review, Boston Review, The Big Windows Review, Shō Poetry Journal, Indianapolis Review, and other venues, including his blog, O at the Edges.