August Kleinzahler was born in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1949. He is the author of more than a dozen books of poems and a memoir, Cutty, One Rock. His collection The Strange Hours Travelers Keep was awarded the 2004 International Griffin Poetry Prize and Sleeping It Off in Rapid City won the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. That same year he received the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry. He lives in San Francisco.