Dan Burt was born in South Philadelphia in 1942. He attended state schools and a local catholic college before reading English at Cambridge. He graduated from Yale Law School and practiced law in the United States, United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia until moving to London in 1994 and becoming a British citizen. He is an honorary Fellow of St. John's College Cambridge and lives and writes in London. His poetry publications include the Lintott pamphlet Searched for Text (2008) and Cold Eye, a poetry and image collaboration with the artist Paul Hodgson (2010).
