John Matthias was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1941. He has lived in California, Indiana, Suffolk, Cambridge and Scotland. He is Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, and has been Visiting Fellow in poetry at Clare Hall, Cambridge. His collections of poetry include Bucyrus, Turns, Crossing and Batory & Lermontov; he has also edited 23 Modern British Poets, Five American Poets and Introducing David Jones. With the late Göran Printz-Påhlson, he edited and translated the anthology Contemporary Swedish Poetry, and a collection of poems, Rainmaker, by Jan Östergren.