Mark Strand was born on Prince Edward Island, Canada. He studied in the United States, Italy and Brazil. He has occupied a number of senior teaching posts in the United states -- at Columbia, Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Wesleyan and elsewhere -- and is currently a Professor in the Writing Seminars at The Johns Hopkins University, Maryland. He has published nine books of poems, volumes of translation, art criticism and fiction. In 1990 he was nominated Poet Laureate of the United States by the Librarian of Congress.