Ted Hirschfield was born Helmut Hirschfeld, in Prussia, Germany, in 1941. During WWII, his father, a Baptist minister, was ousted from his pulpit, and his family was separated by the Nazis. Reunited in 1946, they emigrated, in 1951, to the United States. Hirschfield was educated at Hollins College and Vanderbilt University. He is presently teaching at Southeast Missouri State University, in the Department of English. A volume of his selected verse, entitled Human Weather, appeared in 1991.