Jo Pitkin is the author of the full-length collections Cradle of the American Circus: Poems from Somers, New York (The History Press, 2012), Commonplace Invasions (Salmon Poetry, 2014), and Rendering (Salmon Poetry, 2017) and the chapbook The Measure (Finishing Line Press, 2007). She edited the anthology Lost Orchard: Prose and Poetry from the Kirkland College Community (SUNY Press, 2014). Pitkin earned her BA in Creative Writing and Literature from Kirkland College. A progressive women’s college, Kirkland pioneered the undergraduate creative writing degree. At Kirkland, she studied poetry with Michael Burkard and Tess Gallagher, and was founding editor of the extant campus literary magazine Red Weather. Kirkland later merged with its coordinate partner, Hamilton College. After Kirkland, Pitkin received an MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she studied with Donald Justice, Larry Levis, Jane Cooper, and Sandra McPherson. Pitkin lives and works in New York’s Hudson Highlands close to the river’s narrowest and deepest point.