Stephen Bluestone was born in New York City and educated at Brandeis University and The University of Michigan. His volume The Laughing Monkeys of Gravity was nominated for the National Book Award in Poetry. He has won The Greensboro Review Poetry Prize, several Hopwood Prizes, and a prize in the Robert Penn Warren competition. He has also been the recipient of an NEH Fellowship. This past fall his adaptation of a 12th century work by Jehudah Halevi, set to music by Atlanta composer Curtis
Bryant, was given its New York City premiere. A choral piece to honor the victims of the September 11, 2001 tragedy was also preformed in New York City in February 2003. He is a widely published poet and teaches English and film in the College of Liberal Arts at Mercer University.