Feminist poet Ai, was born Florence Anthony on October 21, 1947, in Albany, Texas. Beginning with her first book of verse, Cruelty, and continuing throughout her career as a poet, Ai wrote cutting edge verse and used dramatic monologues to depict individuals and their struggles.
Ai died on March 20, 2010, in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where she had been teaching at Oklahoma State University.
"Ai." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Gale Biography In Context. http://ic.galegroup.com (retrieved April 14, 2011).
"Ai, a Steadfast Poetic Channel of Hard Lives, Dies at 62." The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/books/28ai.html. (retrieved April 14, 2011).
This is an uncorrected set of galley proofs for Ai's first book of poetry, Cruelty: Poems, published in 1973.
The set bears no autograph notes or corrections and is missing galleys 2 and 3 which would have included the title page.