Robert Pinsky is an award-winning American poet, essayist, and translator. He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism. He served for three terms as the U.S. Poet Laureate, during which time he founded the Favorite Poem Project. His many books include On Poetry, Culture, and Democracy (Princeton), the memoir Jersey Breaks: Becoming an American Poet, and the poetry collections Proverbs of Limbo, At the Foundling Hospital, and Selected Poems. His bestselling translation of Dante's Inferno won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Among his other awards and honors are the William Carlos Williams Award, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the PEN/Voelcker Award, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the PEN American Center. He is distinguished professor emeritus of English and creative writing at Boston University.