John Anthony Ciardi was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended Bates College and was graduated from Tufts College magna cum laude in 1938; in 1939 he received an M.A. from the University of Michigan. Ciardi served in the U.S. Army Air Corps as an aerial gunner during World War II. On 28 July 1946 he married Judith Hostetter of Missouri; they have three children. Ciardi and his family now live in Metuchen, New Jersey.

Ciardi is known to many people for many different reasons, perhaps least of all for his own poetry. He is recognized as a teacher of poetry through his well-known How Does a Poem Mean" (1960) and Poetry: A Closer Look (1963), on which he collaborated with James M. Reid and Laurence Perrine. Ciardi has taught in the English departments of the University of Kansas City (1940-1942, 1945-1946), Harvard University (1946-1953), and Rutgers University (1953-1961), and has received honorary...