Donald Levering grew up in Kansas City and Oceanside, N.Y. He has published seven full-length and six chapbooks of poetry, including PREVIOUS LIVES (2018), COLTRANE'S GOD (2015), THE WATER LEVELING WITH US (2014), and ALGONQUINS PLANTED SALMON (2012), all from Red Mountain Press. COLTRANE'S GOD was runner-up for the New England Book Festival contest, and his prior book, THE WATER LEVELING WITH US, placed 2nd in the National Federation of Press Women book award. In 2017, Eavan Boland selected him winner of the Tor House Foundation Award. Previous honors include a NEA Fellowship, Willapa Bay artist residency, Literal Latté Prize, and the Quest for Peace Prize in Rhetoric. Levering has volunteered with Earthwatch as a species preservation activist for leatherback turtles in Costa Rica, queen conchs in Belize, and with Enkosini for great white sharks in South Africa. Father of a son and daughter, he is married to the artist and poet Jane Shoenfeld and lives in Santa Fe, NM.