John Yau is the author of many books of poetry, fiction, and criticism. His poetry books include Radiant Silhouette: New & Selected Work 1974-1988 (1989) Borrowed Love Poems (2002) Ing Grish (2005) and Bijoux in the Dark (2018). His fiction includes Hawaiian Cowboys (1995) and My Symptoms (1998). His books about art include Wifredo Lam: Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Work: 1961 - 1982 (2002); A Thing Among Things: The Art of Jasper Johns (2008); Joan Mitchell: Trees (2014); Catherine Murphy (2016); Thomas Nozkowski, (2017); and Philip Taaffe (2018). He has previously published two collections of criticism: The Passionate Spectator: Essays on Art and Poetry (2006) and The Wild Children of William Blake (2017). He has received awards and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, National Endowment of the Arts, Academy of American Poets, New York Foundation of the Arts, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. He has been named a Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government, and been given the Distinguished Alumni Award from Brooklyn College (Class of 1978) and an honorary doctorate from the College of Creative Studies in Detroit. In 2018, he was awarded the Jackson Poetry Prize, which is awarded annually by Poets & Writers to "an American poet of exceptional talent who deserves wider recognition.

" He is Professor of Critical Studies at Mason Gross School of the Arts (Rutgers University) and lives in New York.