Tom Lowenstein, born in 1941, studied at Cambridge University. He taught English and Creative Writing at Northwestern University, worked for the Alaska State Museum and spent a year in an Alaskan Eskimo village, recording and translating its legends and histories. His other collections are Filibustering in Samsara (1987), Ancient Land: Sacred Whale (1993), Ancestors and Species: New & Selected Ethnographic Poetry (2005) and Conversation with Murasaki (2009).