Was an English professor at Stanford University from 1986 to 1993. She
also has teaching experience at Swarthmore, Columbia, Brandeis,
Rutgers, Cornell, San Jose State University.
She declined the American National Medal of the Arts by the National
Endowment Foundation in 1997 for her services to literature.
Following the death of her husband, she has been in a relationship with novelist Michelle Cliff since 1976.
Graduated from Radcliffe College.
W.H. Auden chose her first book for the Yale Younger Poets prize.