Richard Foerster was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1949, the son of German immigrants. He holds degrees in English literature from Fordham College and the University of Virginia. His numerous honors include the Discovery (The Nation Award), Poetry magazine's Bess Hokin Prize, a Maine Arts Commission Fellowship, the Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship, and two National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowships-as well as two Maine Literary Awards for Poetry. Since the late 1970s, his work has appeared widely in magazines and anthologies, including The Best American Poetry, Kenyon Review, TriQuarterly, The Gettysburg Review, Shenandoah, The Southern Review, and Poetry. He has worked as a lexicographer, educational writer, typesetter, teacher, and editor of the literary magazines Chelsea and Chautauqua Literary Journal. He lives in a former church in Eliot, Maine, with his partner, the artist Douglas Taylor.