Ron Padgett is a poet, essayist, fiction writer, and translator. He is a member of the New York School. Padgett's first poetry collection, "Great Balls of Fire," was published in 1969. He won a 2009 Shelley Memorial Award. In 2018, he won the Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America. Padgett has been a teacher and director of the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church. He worked as publications director at the Teachers & Writers Collaborative for 20 years. From 2008 to 2013, he served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.