A Phoenix native, Michael Collier has authored five books of poetry: The Clasp and Other Poems (Wesleyan, 1986), The Folded Heart (Wesleyan, 1989), The Neighbor (University of Chicago, 1995), The Ledge (Houghton Mifflin, 2000) and Dark Wild Realm (Houghton Mifflin, 2006); a collection of essays: Make Us Wave Back (University of Michigan, 2007) and a translation of Euripides’ Medea (Oxford University Press, 2006) with Georgia Machemer.

Collier is an associate professor of English at the University of Maryland, and director of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He is also editor of The Wesleyan Tradition: Four Decades of American Poetry (Wesleyan, 1993) and several other poetry anthologies. He was poet laureate of Maryland from 2001 to 2004.  

Photo by Barry Goldstein