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Howard McCord, American poet, essayist, and novelist, was born on November 3, 1932, in El Paso, Texas. After a hitch in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War, he returned to El Paso and attended Texas Western College receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business. The following year he received a Master of Arts degree in English from the University of Utah. In 1960, he began teaching at Washington State University offering courses in Poetry and Eastern Civilizations. He also began the graduate program in Creative Writing. In 1965 he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship which allowed him to travel extensively in India and Nepal and study for a year at the University of Mysore. In 1971, he was appointed Professor of English and Director of the MFA program at Bowling Green State University. The North Carolina Poetry Circuit selected him as visiting poet for the fall of 1971, and he gave readings at campuses throughout the state. Besides his studies in India, he also traveled through Iceland and published a book of poetry about his trip. His published works include poems in over 15 collections of poetry, as well as inclusion in numerous journals and monographs. From 1960 to 1977 his Tribal Press published many works of poetry in various formats.