Born in Brooklyn, Michael Steven Harper studied at California State University, Los Angeles and the University of Iowa. He has published more than a dozen volumes of poetry since the beginning of his career and has edited several volumes of African-American poetry.

Harper served as the first Poet Laureate of the State of Rhode Island from 1988 to 1993 and has won numerous awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship and an award from the National Endowment For the Arts. He has taught at Brown University since 1970.

–Christie Finn