Color photograph of English poet David Whyte
Photo by Scott Garen
David Whyte was born and raised in Yorkshire; his mother was Irish and his father English. Whyte earned a degree in marine biology in Wales and for a time led naturalist tours and expeditions in the Galapagos Islands, the Andes, the Amazon region, and the Himalayas. Whyte’s poetry is known for its eclectic and spiritual bent. His collections of poetry include Songs for Coming Home (1984), Where Many Rivers Meet (1990), The House of Belonging (1996), River Flow: New & Selected Poems 1984–2007 (2006), and Pilgrim (2012). His works of prose frequently deal with his commitment to using poetry in business and organizational settings to encourage creativity, leadership, and engagement. His prose works include The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America (1994), Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity (2001), and The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship (2009).
 
Whyte is an associate fellow at Said Business School at the University of Oxford. He has worked with a variety of international companies and in 2008 was awarded an honorary doctorate from Neumann College, Pennsylvania. Whyte currently lives in the Pacific Northwest.