Edwin Arlington Robinson was born December 22nd, 1869 at Head Tide, Main. He was the son of Edward and Mary E. (Palmer) Robinson. In 1870 the family moved from Head Tide to Gardiner, Maine, where he recieved his early education at Gardiner High School. After graduating high school, he went on to attend Harvard College from 1891 to 1893. Between 1897 and 1898 he lived in New York then returned to live there permanently in 1900. He chose New York so that he could be close to other writers. His first works, The Torrent and The Night Before, were printed in 1896 on a limited number of personally printed pamphlets which are now extremely rare. In 1897 his second volume, the first to be offered to the public, was published and entitled The Children of the Night.

Edwin Arlington Robinson worked in other occupations, but he mainly focused on poetry. From 1903 to 1904, he was employed by the New York subway as an inspecector. Between 1905 and 1909, he worked at the Custom House in New York doing office work. He obtained that job through influence by President Roosevelt who was a fan of Arlington's poetry. He eventually left that occupation behind to dedicate all his time to writing poetry.

Between 1897 and 1922, Robinson has had eight volumes of poetry and two plays published along with the book Collected Poems that was published in 1921. He believed that a poet's work could not be measured until after time had passed after the poet's death. In a letter, Robinson stated: "I came to realise that a poet begins to live, if he lives at all, only after he is dead, and long ago ceased worrying about it."