Douglas Messerli, Green Integer's publisher, began First Words in 1995 as an exercise in which he imbedded the first words by other poets. The series evolved into a personal document of despair and potentiality that he experienced over the next three years, expressed with his usual masterly wit and wordplay. Messerli has won several awards for his poetry and was recently named a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres by the French government.