Michael Palmer was born in New York and educated at Harvard. He has published fourteen books of poetry (The Lion Bridge draws on seven: Blake's Newton, The Circular Gates, Without Music, Notes for Echo Lake, First Figure, Sun and At Passages), and also translates works from Russian, Portuguese and French. He has staged many dance works in collaboration with the Martha Jenkins Dance Company. During 1989-90 he was Guggenheim Fellow of poetry. He now lives in San Francisco.