BRIAN HENRY was born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1972, and raised in Virginia. He has published over 150 poems in magazines around the world, including The New Republic, American Poetry Review, The Paris Review, New American Writing, Stand, and Overland. His poetry has been collected in several anthologies and has been translated into Russian, Slovenian, and Croatian. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Australia in 1997-98, and he traveled to Russia as a Cultural Specialist in 1999.

In 2000, Arc Publications published his first book of poetry, Astronaut, which was subsequently shortlisted for the Forward Prize. Astronaut also appeared in Slovenia in translation from Mondena Publishing in 2000. Carnegie Mellon University Press published Astronaut in 2001.

Henry is also a widely published critic. He reviews poetry for The Kenyon Review, Boston Review, the Times Literary Supplement, and Poetry Review, among other publications, and his criticism has appeared in The Antioch Review, The Yale Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and other magazines. He is editing On James Tate for University of Michigan Press, and he is a frequent contributor to Scribners' American Writers series.

Henry has edited Verse since 1995, and he founded Verse Press in 2000. He lives in Athens, Georgia, where he teaches at the University of Georgia.