John Hoppenthaler’s books of poetry are Night Wing Over Metropolitan Area, Domestic Garden, Anticipate the Coming Reservoir, and Lives of Water, all with Carnegie Mellon UP. With Kazim, Ali, he has co-edited a volume of essays on the poetry of Jean Valentine, This-World Company (U of Michigan P). His poetry, essays, and interviews have appeared in Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, New York Magazine, Southern Review, Poetry Northwest, The Literary Review, Blackbird, Southern Humanities Review, and many other journals, anthologies, and textbooks.

Born in Brooklyn, NY in 1960, he lived in Queens, NY until 1965, when his family moved to New City, NY. He received an AA in Poetry Writing from Rockland Community College and a BS in English from the State University of New York at Brockport. Hoppenthaler received his MFA in Poetry Writing from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1988.

He served as Personal Assistant to Nobel Prize-winning writer Toni Morrison from December 1997-August 2006. His poetry has been praised by award-winning authors that include former US Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey, MacArthur Genius Award recipient Campbell McGrath, Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash, and American Book Award winner Li-Young Lee, Dorianne Laux, David St. John, David Baker, and Michael Waters.

He was the editor of A Poetry Congeries for ten years and the Poetry Editor of Kestrel for twelve years. Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at East Carolina University, he serves on the Advisory Board for Backbone Press, specializing in the publication and promotion of marginalized voices. He lives in Raleigh, NC, with his wife Christy, his stepson, Danny, and Pablo the dog.