Martin Rock is the author of Residuum, editor’s choice for the Cleveland State University Poetry Center’s First Book Prize, and Dear Mark, a collection of ekphrastic poems in response to the work of Mark Rothko, published by Brooklyn Arts Press. With poet Phillip D. Ischy, he published the chapbook Fish, You Bird, a selection of call-and-response tanka written over 3 years between Japan and Texas (Pilot Books). His work has also been published in Best American Experimental Writing, Best New Poets, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, in addition to appearing widely in literary journals such as AGNI, Colorado Review, Black Warrior Review, Copper Nickel, and elsewhere. His translations from Japanese have appeared in Asymptote.

Martin holds an MFA in poetry from New York University and a PhD in literature and creative writing from University of Houston, where he did coursework focused on the history of literary criticism, environmental theory, creative writing pedagogy, and ecopoetics. He has received fellowships from NYU, The Starworks Foundation, InPrint Houston, the Port Townsend Writing Conference, and the Periwinkle Foundation, and his work has been featured by Brooklyn Poets, Missouri Review, and Verse Daily. In 2016, he was awarded the Donald Barthelme Prize in Poetry, chosen by poet Nicky Beer.

As a literary editor and publisher, Martin has served at several nationally and internationally distributed literary journals including as editor in chief of Washington Square Review, and as managing editor at both Epiphany, a Literary Journal and Gulf Coast, a journal of literature and fine art, in addition to founding and publishing the short-lived online magazine Loaded Bicycle. While at Gulf Coast, Martin helped to establish the Gulf Coast Prize in Translation and saw the journal recognized with a CLMP firecracker award. With Kevin Prufer and Martha Collins, Martin also co-edited the book Catherine Breese Davis: On the Life and Work of an American Master.

While completing his PhD, Martin moved to the Bay Area and accepted a role leading communications at the Exploratorium, a museum of art, science, and human perception.