Poet Joelle Biele was born in 1969, in the Bronx, New York. In 1991, she received a bachelor's degree in English from Tufts University in Boston, and she earned her master of fine arts and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1993 and 1998, respectively. Even as a young poet, Biele was recognized as a strong talent in making language come alive in her work. The rich imagery and precise descriptions that comprise her poems earned her early recognition throughout contemporary literary circles. She was the winner of both the Ruth Lake Award and the Cecil Hemley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. She received a 1998—1999 Fulbright fellowship to Germany, where she taught American literature, and she has served as a lecturer in the English department at the University of Maryland.

Biele's first full-length collection of poems, White Summer, won a First...