David Starkey is the former Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara, a senior Fulbright scholar, and a six-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize. Among his poetry collections are Starkey's Book of States (Boson Books, 2007), Adventures of the Minor Poet (Artamo Press, 2007), Ways of Being Dead: New and Selected Poems (Artamo, 2006), David Starkey's Greatest Hits (Pudding House, 2002) A Few Things You Should Know About the Weasel (Biblioasis 2010) and Fear of Everything, winner of Palanquin Press's Spring 2000 chapbook contest.

Books by David Starkey:

Other poems on the web by David Starkey:
Six poems
"Still Life"
Two poems
"Taliban Kill 10 on Aid Trip in Afghanistan"
Two poems
"Mythology"

About Circus Maximus:

"In Circus Maximus, David Starkey wanders through contemporary Rome to be arrested time and again by the intensities of vision and faith of its Catholic art. We have here ... moments of the extraordinary hidden within the hurly-burly of the ephemeral everyday. And this he renders with great charm, alertness and silken intelligence."
—Irving Feldman

"In clean skillfully written stanzas, the poet shows us what he can do with language that is as precise as it is suggestive … David Starkey is our knowing, reliable, astute guide—not just to the enduring metropolis that is Rome—but to the eternal city of imagination and art."
—Kurt Brown

"Spiritual yet visceral, aware of the isolation inherent in being human, Starkey reminds us we must live without closure. Yet in this complex collection, ‘nothing ever really douses hope.’"
—Vivian Shipley

"Eloquent, evocative, richly detailed ... a rewarding, memorable read."
—David O’Meara