Life-long Midwesterner John Palen, born in rural Missouri in 1942, worked as a store clerk, draftsman, newspaper reporter and editor, and journalism teacher. Over more than 50 years his poems have appeared in such publications as Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Spoon River Poetry Review, Cider Press Review and The Formalist, and in anthologies published by Wayne State University Press and Milkweed Editions. He won the Passages North Poetry Competition in 1989, was a finalist in the Howard Nemerov sonnet competition, and has been a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. He earned a doctorate in American Studies at Michigan State University and was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities journalism fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. Mayapple Press brought out Open Communion: New and Selected Poems in 1994 and Distant Music in 2017. His most recent book, Riding With the Diaspora, won the 2021 chapbook competition at Sheila-Na-Gig. He lives, writes and gardens on the Illinois Grand Prairie.