Rhina P. Espaillat was born in the Dominican Republic and came to the United States as a young girl with her family as exiles from dictatorship, settling in New York City. As a bilingual poet, Espaillat is winner of numerous prizes including the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Richard Wilbur Award, and (twice) the Howard Nemerov Sonnet award. Her most recent book is For Instance.