American poet Sam Pereira was born in Los Banos, California on April 17, 1949. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from California State University, Fresno (1971) and his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa (1975), where he was a student in the legendary Iowa Writers' Workshop. Pereira's literary influences include poets Philip Levine, Charles Wright (poet), Richard Hugo, Mark Strand, and Norman Dubie. His contemporaries include poets David St. John and the late Larry Levis. He has published two books of poetry: The Marriage of the Portuguese (L'Epervier Press, 1978) and Brittle Water (Abattoir Editions/Penumbra Press, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 1987). A third book, A Cafe in Boca, was released in 2007 by Tebot Bach. Work of his has also appeared in several anthologies of contemporary American poetry in recent decades, among them: Piecework: 19 Fresno Poets (Silver Skates, 1987), The Body Electric (W. W. Norton, 2000), and How Much Earth: The Fresno Poets (Heyday/Roundhouse Press, 2001). His poems have been included in numerous magazines as well, among them, Alaska Quarterly Review, American Poetry Review, Antioch Review, Cutbank, Manoa, Missouri Review, Poetry and Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts. He lives in the San Joaquin Valley of California with his wife, the writer Susan R. G. Pereira, and is an English teacher in California's public school system.
