Duncan Hartley, 1942-, was born on 31 July 1942. He completed his B.A. in English literature and History at the University of Michigan in 1964. While there, he was part of a writing group run by poetry professors Donald Hall, W. D. Snodgrass, and X. J. Kennedy. He went on to complete his M.A. and Ph.D. in English literature, Shakespeare, and constitutional law at Wayne State University. Hartley had started doing freelance photography in eighth grade and continued this work during his years in school. He runs a fine art photography studio and is currently based in New York City. His series of photographs in memory of W. D. Snodgrass is entitled Heart's Needle.

W. D. Snodgrass, 1926-2009, was born on 5 January 1926 in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. He attended Geneva College for one year before being drafted into the United States Navy in 1944. In 1946, he transferred to the University of Iowa and started writing poetry. He completed his B.A. in 1949, his M.A. in 1951, and his M.F.A. in 1953. In 1959, he published his first collection of poetry, Heart's Needle, about being separated from his daughter after he and his wife divorced. He published nineteen collections of poetry and several books of prose and edited several anthologies. Snodgrass died in Erieville, New York, on 13 January 2009.