Steve K. Kelen was born in Sydney in 1956. Since winning the Poetry Australia Prize in 1973 his poems have been widely published. In 1996 he received an Australia Council Grant to travel and write in the US and was Visiting Professor of Writing at the University of South Dakota. In 1998 he was Asialink Writer in Residence in Vietnam and in 2000 was recipient of the ACT Creative Arts Fellowship. Goddess of Mercy is his fifth book of poetry. Brandl & Schlesinger published New and Selected Poems in 2011.