Mona Van Duyn was born in Waterloo, Iowa. She was educated at the University of Northern Iowa, where she received a B.A. in 1942, and at the University of Iowa, where she obtained her M.A. in 1943. She married Jarvis A. Thurston in 1943. She was an instructor in English at the University of Iowa (1943-1946) and at the University of Louisville (1946-1950); lecturer in English at Washington University, St. Louis (1950-1967); and lecturer for the Salzburg (Austria) Seminar in American Studies in 1973. She has served as a poetry consultant for the Olin Library Modern Literature Collection at Washington University. From 1947 to 1967 she edited, with Jarvis Thurston, Perspective: A Quarterly of Literature. Her awards include Poetry magazine's Eunice Tietjens Memorial Prize, 1956; two Helen Bullis Prizes from Poetry Northwest, 1964 and 1976; a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, 1966; the Hart Crane Memorial Award from American Weave Press, 1968; the Harriet Monroe Memorial...