Richard Levine (1947-) was born in Brooklyn, NY. He attended public schools and the School of Visual Arts, before serving in Vietnam with the Third Marine Division, 1966-68. He earned a BA in English from Fordham University, and an MA in Creative Writing from City University of New York, where he studied with William Matthews and Frederick Tuten. He also studied with David Ignatow at the Unterberg Poetry Center.

Levine is the author of Now in Contest (2023); Richard Levine: Selected Poems (2019); Contiguous States (2018); and five chapbooks: The Cadence of Mercy, A Tide of a Hundred Mountains, That Country’s Soul, A Language Full of Wars and Songs, and Snapshots from a Battle.

His poetry has appeared in former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s column, American Life in Poetry, and on the Poetry Foundation website. In 2012, his A Tide of a Hundred Mountains won the Bright Hill Press Chapbook Award. He is also the recipient of the 2021 Connecticut Poetry Society Award.

In 2019, Levine and Barry Wallenstein became co-editors of BigCityLit (BCL) after the death of their friend Nicholas Johnson (the founder of BCL).