Ishion Hutchinson was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica. He is the author of three poetry collections: Far District; House of Lords and Commons; and School of Instructions.

He received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, a Guggenheim fellowship, the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize, the Whiting Writers Award, the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. He is a contributing editor to the literary journals The Common and Tongue: A Journal of Writing & Art.