Galway Mills Kinnell (February 1, 1927 – October 28, 2014) was a renowned American poet. Known for his dark and powerful poetry, Kinnell often explored themes in threatening, ego-less natural environments. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1982 collection, Selected Poems, and shared the National Book Award for Poetry with Charles Wright. From 1989 to 1993, he served as the poet laureate for the state of Vermont.

While his work often delved into darker themes, Kinnell was considered to follow in the tradition of Walt Whitman, rejecting the notion of seeking personal fulfillment through escapism into imaginary worlds. Some of his most celebrated and anthologized poems include the poem cycle The Book of Nightmares, along with "St. Francis and the Sow," "After Making Love We Hear Footsteps," and "Wait."

Kinnell studied at Princeton University, graduating in 1948, and later earned a Master's degree from the University of Rochester. As a young man, he served in the US Navy and traveled extensively across Europe and the Middle East. His first volume of poetry, What a Kingdom It Was, was published in 1960. Upon returning to the United States, Kinnell became deeply involved in the civil rights movement, joining the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) as a field worker and participating in various marches and civil actions.

Additionally, Kinnell received numerous accolades throughout his career, including the MacArthur Fellowship, a Rockefeller Grant, the 1974 Shelley Prize from the Poetry Society of America, and the 1975 Medal of Merit from the National Institute of Arts and Letters.