Michael Gizzi (1949 – September 27, 2010) was an American poet, teacher, and licensed arborist. Life Michael Gizzi was born in Schenectady, New York in 1949, to Carolyn and Anthony Gizzi. He had two brothers, Peter and Thomas Gizzi. He spent part of his childhood living in Ohio and later lived in East Greenwich, Rhode Island for three years of high school (10th, 11th, and 12th grade). His parents moved to Pittsfield, Massachusetts but he later returned to Rhode Island as an undergraduate student at Brown University. He graduated from Brown University with a Bachelor of Arts in 1976, and returned to Brown to earn his Master of Arts degree in English in June 1977. There he worked alongside colleagues Bob Kessler, Jade D'Aquilarive "JD" Benson (born Denice Joan Deitch), Julia Thacker, playwright Andrea Hairston, fiction writer Alex Londres (life partner of attorney Geoffrey Bowers; see movie Philadelphia) and others, in workshops and readings. He attended the Masters program with the support of mentor Keith Waldrop who ultimately connected him to the Burning Deck community of poets and artists. Early career Around this time he married his first wife, fellow artist Ippy Patterson, and his daughter, Pilar, was born. They purchased a home in Rehoboth, Massachusetts where he worked for seven years as an arborist and tree surgeon in southeastern New England to support his family. After receiving his AM, he moved to the Berkshires in western Massachusetts where he worked collaboratively with Clark Coolidge on a Jack Kerouac-inspired series. This work with Coolidge cemented a long-lasting friendship in work and in life. In the early 1990s, Gizzi began teaching English and creative writing at Lenox High School, which he did for several years. Literary career In the late 1990s, he moved back to Providence, Rhode Island. At this time he was married to his second wife, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) graduate and collage artist, Barbieo (Barros). He worked as adjunct faculty and visiting professor at Roger Williams University and Brown University. He officially started work as an adjunct creative writing professor at Roger Williams University in 2005 and worked for three more years as a visiting professor there. Due to financial constraints, Roger Williams could not ask Gizzi back in the fall of 2009, so he worked as a visiting professor in literary arts at Brown during this time and coordinated a number of poetry readings and