Frank X. Gaspar was born and raised in the old Portuguese West End of Provincetown, Massachusetts. He is the author of five collections of poetry and two novels. Among his many awards are the Morse, Anhinga, and Brittingham Prizes for poetry, multiple inclusions in Best American Poetry, four Pushcart Prizes, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Literature, and a California Arts Council Fellowship in poetry. He most recently held the Helio and Amelia Pedrosa/Luso-American Foundation Endowed Chair at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.
"The rumble and rupture of Frank X. Gaspar's Late Rapturous is the clash of ancient faith and postmodern anxiety, one man's account of the fullest range of living. I have loved Gaspar's work since The Holyoke, so it's no small moment to say that this is his finest work—wrought and raw, barren and plush, wide-lined, full-throated—poetry driven by the most pressing incommensurates into parables of sea-salt and mountain ecstasies. He says 'it's been war my whole life,' and he means this paradox, this battle for belief, purpose, and soulful connection."
—David Baker
"From his writing room near the ocean in southern California, Frank Gaspar makes an irresistible music that crosses over from the inner to the outer, from memory to the moment, from the earth to the farthest stars and back again. I've loved his work for years and it just gets better and better, and unbelievably better. Gaspar is an ecstatic, and Late Rapturous is visionary, planetary and quietly wise."
—Dorianne Laux
"I'm afraid I love everything Portuguese for one of my ancient cousins four or five centuries ago came from Lisbon; but I also like Gaspar's poems because of their wandering, their long lines, and their secret messages. He has faith in the poem; he knows it will somehow happen. It's that faith I praise."
—Gerald Stern
Autumn House Press
