Paul Zimmer was born in Canton, Ohio. He attended Kent State University beginning in 1952, but his education was interrupted from 1954 to 1955 by service in the army. He was back at Kent State from 1956 until 1959, but he did not receive his B.A. until 1968. After college he held a variety of jobs--all of them related to books. He managed book departments in California for such stores as the San Francisco News Company (1963-1964) and the University of California at Los Angeles bookstore (1964-1966). From 1967 to 1979 Zimmer has served as the assistant director of the University of Pittsburgh Press and editor of the Pitt Poetry Series. In 1970 he served as the poet-in-residence at Chico State College (now California State University, Chico). He received a Borestone Mountain Award in 1971 and three years later he was given a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is now the director of...