Sandra Hochman was born in New York City. She has been married and divorced twice. Her first husband was concert violinist Ivry Gitlis, and in 1965 she married Harvey Leve, an international lawyer. She has one daughter, Ariel Leve. Hochman took her undergraduate degree from Bennington College in 1957 and then studied at the Sorbonne. She has been poet-in-residence at Fordham University and City College of New York. She received the Yale Series of Younger Poets award for Manhattan Pastures (1963).

Hochman is a prolific writer who has earned distinction in several genres. Besides publishing six books of poetry, she has written novels, plays, columns for Harper's Bazaar, and the screenplay for a widely distributed film, Year of the Woman (1973). Her most recent publication is a book about poetics, Streams: Life-Secrets for Writing Poems and Songs (1978).

In the introductory poem to Streams, Hochman explains, "I have used my own life to...