Born in Newark, New Jersey, poetry came late to Joseph Zaccardi at the age of thirteen. His publications include Vents (Pancake Press 2005), Render (Poetic Matrix Press 2009), and The Nine Gradations of Light (Bark for Me Publications 2013), A Wolf Stands Alone in Water (CW Books 2015), The Weight of Bodily Touches 2019), Songbirds of the Nine Rivers (Sixteen Rivers Press 2023). He received an Individual Artist Grant from the Marin Arts Council, and in 2010 thru 2012 was editor of the Marin Poetry Center Anthology. He was appointed poet Laureate of Marin County, CA in 2013 for a two-year term. Since 1987 he has lived in Fairfax, tossing seeds from an imaginary apple tree.