B. 1936

Richard Tagett was born in Ashtabula, Ohio. He dropped out of college to join the Air Force. He moved to New York City in 1960 after serving four years in the Air Force. In New York, he studied poetry at the New School for Social Research before moving to San Francisco, where he became acquainted with poets Jack Spicer, Robert Duncan, and Jack Gilbert (whose seminar he attended at San Francisco State College). Tagett founded the journal Manroot with Paul Mariah in 1969, coediting it until 1978.

Tagett’s collections of poetry include Somatic Messages (2020), Demodulating Angel: Selected Poems 1960–2010, What Were Yards (2008), and Breaking the Silence (2005). He lives in the San Francisco Bay area.