PATTIANN ROGERS was born in Joplin, Missouri, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BA from the University of Missouri in 1961. She received a Master of Arts from the University of Houston in 1981. She has taught at the University of Texas, the University of Montana, Washington University of St. Louis, and Mercer University as the Ferrol Sams Distinguished Writer-in-Residence. She taught in the Creative Writing Program during the spring semesters, 1993 to 1997, at the University of Arkansas. She is the mother of two sons and a daughter-in-law and lives with her husband, a retired geophysicist, in Colorado.

Rogers has published ten books, most recently Song of the World Becoming, New and Collected Poems, 1981 - 2001 (Milkweed Editions). This book contains all of her poems previously published in books, plus forty new poems, and line and title indexes, It was a finalist for the LA Times Book Award and was named an Editor's Choice, Top of the List by Booklist.

Her sixth book, Firekeeper, New and Selected Poems was chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the Best Books Published in 1994 and was one of five finalists for the Lenore Marshall Award given by the Academy of American Poets for the most outstanding book of poetry published in the United States in 1994. It also received the Natalie Ornish Poetry Award from the Texas Institute of Letters.