Born in New York City, raised on Long Island, and educated at Boston University, Paul Violi worked as managing editor of Architectural Forum, on various special projects for Universal Limited Art Edition, and taught at several colleges, including New York University. He published eight books of poetry since the 1970s. "Index" is not the only poem of his that textualizes apparently innocent linguistic contexts. "Errata" achieves similar results with an invented errata page. "Marina" makes a socially unstable poem out of real or imagined boats' names. “Tanka” and “A Moveable Snack” show his black humor with its typical concision.