Ann Stanford (1916–1987) is the author of eleven poetry collections, including Holding Our Own, as well as a translation of the Bhagavad Gita and the first comprehensive collection of poetry by women, The Women Poets in English. She received many honors, among them the Shelley Memorial Award and the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America. She spent her whole life in California, and after her death the Ann Stanford Poetry Prize was created in her honor at the University of Southern California.