| Neil Aitken | |
| Birth Date: | 1974 |
| Birth Place: | Vancouver |
| Nationality: | Canadian |
| Occupation: | Poet, editor, and translator |
Neil Aitken (born 1974 in Vancouver, British Columbia) is a Canadian poet, editor, and translator. He founded Boxcar Poetry Review.[1] [2] His first book, The Lost Country of Sight, won the 2007 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry.[3] [4]
Aitken was born in Vancouver in 1974[5] and was raised in Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Canada, and the United States.[6] His father was of Scottish and English descent and his mother was of Chinese descent.[7] He had a younger sister. He attended elementary and secondary school in Regina. Throughout high school, he enjoyed painting.[8] As an undergraduate, he studied Computer Engineering with a minor in Mathematics.
He worked as a computer games programmer for several years. In 2004, he quit his position to study at the University of California, Riverside, where he earned an MFA. He earned a PhD in Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Southern California.[9]
Aitken's first book, The Lost Country of Sight, won the 2007 Philip Levine Prize. In 2016, he published Babbage’s Dream, a semi-finalist for the Anthony Hecht Prize. He founded Boxcar Poetry Review. Aitken and Chinese poet-translator Ming Di translated The Book of Cranes: Selected Poems of Zang Di. In 2011, Aitken was awarded the DJS Translation Prize for "his translations of contemporary Chinese poetry."