Robert Dana graduated from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1954. After forty years of teaching at Cornell College, he retired in 1994 as professor of English and poet-in-residence. His work was awarded National Endowment fellowships in 1985 and 1993, the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award in 1989, and the Pushcart Prize in 1996. He was the Iowa Poet Laureate from 2006 to 2008. His most recent collection of poems is The Other.