Mailler, a poet for nearly six decades, earned his MFA from UMASS in 1974. Initially fascinated by indigenous, Chinese, and Japanese poetry, as well as classic modern poets like Williams, Olson, Creeley, and Levertov, he continues to explore the bounds of poetic form while allowing diverse influences to help shape his work. Of his creative process he says, "For me, poems always begin in the heart, not the head. If I had to write a poem on demand or look for something to write about, I wouldn't bother. I prefer to let the poems find me. They each arc out of the subconscious already in possession of their own unique DNA. My job is to craft an inhabitable form out of which they are able to speak." In the current domestic and geopolitical environment, Mailler takes James Baldwin's advice especially to heart: "... what you are doing, as a writer, or any kind of artist, what your role is... is to bear witness: to what life is, does, and to speak for people who cannot speak."