 from Niagara University, and his Ph.D. from Kent State University, where he wrote his dissertation on William Faulkner.As a student he witnessed the 1970 Kent State shootings; his early poem "The Commons" addresses this event.According to Lorraine Hale Robinson, Makuck's poems "repeatedly explore the themes of epiphany and second chances; of the relations of mystery, grace, and beauty; and of the revalatory effects of jolts of violence."