Poet, journalist, and filmmaker Lewis MacAdams was born into a family of activists in Dallas, Texas. He earned a BA in English from Princeton University and an MA from the State University of New York at Buffalo. His numerous poetry collections include Dear Oxygen: New & Selected Poems 1966–2011; The River: Books One, Two, and Three (2007); Africa and the Marriage of Walt Whitman and Marilyn Monroe (1982); News from Niman Farm (1976); The Poetry Room (1971); and City Money (1966). He also published Birth of the Cool: Beat, Bebop, and the American Avant Garde (2001), a history of the American avant-garde in the 1940s and 1950s. With Richard Lerner, he codirected What Happened to Kerouac? (1986), a documentary that explores the life of Beat writer Jack Kerouac. MacAdams also published essays in Rolling Stone, the Los Angeles Times, and the L.A. Weekly.

In his youth, MacAdams lived in Bolinas, California, where he was involved with grassroots environmental activism. He directed the Poetry Center at San Francisco State University from 1975 to 1978. In 1980, he moved to Los Angeles, and six years later, using wire cutters, he cut a hole in a fence that separated the Los Angeles River from the city. Through this performative act, he initiated a lifelong dedication to river restoration, founding Friends of the Los Angeles River, a nonprofit with a mission to “ensure an equitable, publicly accessible, and ecologically sustainable Los Angeles River by inspiring River stewardship through community engagement, education, advocacy, and thought leadership.” In 2016, he stepped aside, and new leadership took over.

MacAdams died in Los Angeles in early 2020.