Jane Hirshfield was born and raised in New York City in 1953 until she left for college at Princeton, graduating in 1973. She was part of the first graduating class to have women as freshmen. Shortly after graduating from Princeton, her first poem was published in The National and won The Discovery Award. After school, she took a break from writing and went to the San Francisco Zen Center to study for almost eight years to become a better poet by becoming a better person.

Her poetry is influenced by her time at the Zen Center, as well as many travels abroad. She works to find a marriage between Western and Eastern ideas and ultimately writes reflectively. She has published twelve poetry collections throughout her life on a variety of themes moving more towards science in the later years. Besides being a celebrated poet she also taught at multiple universities in California.