Born in California’s Mojave Desert in 1956, Forrest Gander grew up in Virginia and attended the College of William & Mary, where he majored in geology. After earning an MA in literature from San Francisco State University, where he met the poet C.D. Wright, and they moved to Mexico, then to Arkansas, and finally to Rhode Island, where both writers taught at Brown University.
His books of poetry include Lynchburg (1993), Deeds of Utmost Kindness (1994), Science & Steepleflower (1998), Torn Awake (2001), Eye Against Eye (2005), Rush to the Lake (2011), and Core Samples from the World (2011, poems and essays with photographs). Though primarily a poet, Gander is also a translator, novelist, essayist, and the editor of two anthologies. He translated Then Come Back: The Lost Poems of Neruda (Copper Canyon Press, US, 2016; Bloodaxe Books, UK, 2017), and his Neruda translations are included in The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems (City Lights, US, 2004; Bloodaxe Books, UK, 2010). His other recent translations are Fungus Skull Eye Wing: Selected Poems of Alfonso D'Aquino and Watchword (which won the Villaurrutia Prize) by Pura López Colomé; Spectacle & Pigsty by Kiwao Nomura (winner of Best Translated Book Award); and Firefly Under the Tongue: Selected Poems of Coral Bracho (Finalist, PEN Translation Prize). His most recent anthologies are Pinholes in the Night: Essential Poems from Latin American (selected by Raúl Zurita) and Panic Cure: Poems from Spain for the 21st Century. He has also published two novels, As a Friend (2008) and The Trace (2014).
