Jay Leeming has his own way of thinking which isn’t like anyone else’s. His most individual poems come from that surprising angle of vision that marks him as a real poet. His poems are winged beings that dive straight to the playful, lunatic heart of human companionship.   
​—Robert Bly

Jay Leeming is an award-winning poet, storyteller, and musician. He is the author of the poetry books Miracle Atlas (Writers and Books, 2011) and Dynamite on a China Plate (Backwaters Press, 2006). He has taught throughout the United States and abroad, and is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. For many years he worked as a ranger-naturalist in Yosemite National Park, deepening visitors' experience of the natural world through poetry, storytelling and music. He has served both as Poet Laureate of Tompkins County (NY) and Summer Poet-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi, and from 2010 to 2013 was editor of the journal Rowboat: Poetry in Translation. He makes his home in Ithaca, New York.