Florida poet and musician Hal Shows is a State of Florida Individual Artist Fellow and a member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. A chapbook of his poems, A Breath for Nothing, appeared from the Anhinga Press in 1977. In 1980, Mr. Shows founded the post-punk rock band Persian Gulf, with whom he released Changing the Weather (1984), Persian Gulf: The Movie (1986), and Trailer (1987). Subsequent solo productions include Birthday Suit (1990), Lifeboat (1995), Whitman’s Sampler (2000), and Native Dancer (2003). Parasol, his first full-length volume of poems, was published in 2007. A book of essays and incidental prose, Marginalia, is due later this year, and a new recording project is in the works. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.