Margaret Louise Dauner, 1907-2005, was a professor emeritus of English at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis. A native of Indianapolis, Dauner worked with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra from 1931-1937, as publicity director and violinist. After receiving her Ph.D. from The State University of Iowa in 1944, she taught at such institutions as: Broad Ripple High School, Drake University, Duke University, and Butler University. She was appointed to IUPUI in 1963, became a full professor in 1970, and retired in 1977.

Edwin Arlington Robinson, 1869-1935, was a prolific American poet. A contemporary of Amy Lowell, Robinson distinguished himself as a poet through his use of everyday language and traditional poetic forms. His first collection of poems, Torrent and the Night Before, was self-published in 1896. He struggled to gain notoriety until his poetry was noticed in 1904 by President Theodore Roosevelt who chose to support Robinson financially. Eventually Robinson achieved more success. His Collected Poems (1921) won the first Pulitzer Prize ever awarded for poetry in 1922, and he went on to win Pulitzers in 1925 and 1928 for his works The Man Who Died Twice and Tristram, respectively. He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times.