Bart Edelman was born in Paterson, New Jersey, and spent his childhood in Teaneck. He earned both his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Hofstra University. He has taught at Kingsborough Community College of the City University of New York, Santa Monica College, West Los Angeles College, Long Beach City College, UCLA, and Glendale College, where he edited Eclipse, A Literary Journal. Most recently, he was appointed to the Affiliate Faculty in the MFA Program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. He was Poet-in-Residence at Monroe College of the State University of New York. His work has been widely anthologized in textbooks published by City Lights Books, Etruscan Press, Fountainhead Press, Harcourt Brace, Longman, McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Prentice Hall, Simon & Schuster, Thomson, the University of Iowa Press, Wadsworth, and others. He has been awarded grants and fellowships from the United States Department of Education, the University of Southern California, and the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin to conduct literary research in India, Egypt, Nigeria, and Poland. In addition, he received National Endowment for the Humanities grants for a series of lectures at public libraries on "The Common Good: Individualism and Commitment in American Life," and "Trails: Toward a New Western History." Collections of his poetry include Crossing the Hackensack, Under Damaris' Dress, The Alphabet of Love, The Gentle Man, The Last Mojito, The Geographer's Wife, and Whistling to Trick the Wind. He lives in Pasadena, California.