Mark Terrill is a native Californian. After failing to complete high school, he travelled widely in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, before obtaining his seaman’s papers and shipping out of San Francisco to the Far East and beyond. Back in San Francisco in the late 1970s, Terrill was a founding member and lead guitarist for post-punk anti-rock band Ugly Stick. In 1981 he attended a writing workshop in Tangier, Morocco, with Paul Bowles and after further travels settled in Hamburg, Germany, in 1984. Simultaneously with pursuing his literary activities, he has been employed as a shipyard welder, road manager for rock bands (American Music Club, Mekons, etc.), cook, and postal worker. He currently lives on the grounds of a former boatyard with his wife, Uta, and several cats.

Terrill’s poems have appeared in print and online in more than a thousand journals and anthologies, including City Lights Review, Bombay Gin, Empty Mirror, Jacket, Diagram, Rattle, RHINO, and Talisman, and been translated into French, German, and Portuguese. His books include Bread & Fish (The Figures, 2002) and Diamonds & Sapience (Dark Style, 2017). Terrill has also translated poetry by Jörg Fauser (An Evening in Europe, Toad Press) and Rolf Dieter Brinkmann (An Unchanging Blue: Selected Poems 1962-75, Parlor Press).

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