Le Hinton

Le Hinton was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1952. He grew up with six siblings and a mother who always read aloud to them. "She would read the Bible and Langston Hughes in particular," Hinton told reporter Sara Pokorny. "Poetry is just something that's always been there," he continued. By age 16, Hinton began writing his own poetry.  

He earned Bachelor of Art’s degrees in English and Literature from Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia in 1974. The university’s newspaper was the first to publish his work, but according to an interview with Tyler Barton, "It wasn't until the late 90s that [Hinton] began attending readings at Borders where he met local poets Jack Veasey, Rich Hemmings, and Jeff Rath. [He] performed his first featured poet reading in Harrisburg in 2001 and quickly emerged in the local writing community." 

In 2004, Hinton created Iris G. Press/I. Giraffe Press with the philosophy that, "...the solitary reading and re-reading of a poem that moves us remains our primary source of joy and poetry pleasure." The press aims to give voice to poets from a variety of geographical locations as well as to include a variety of poetic styles. Hinton also solicits poetry for Fledgling Rag, a literary journal he began in 2007, which has featured poets such as Yona Harvey, Gwyn McVay, Deanna Nikaido, and Meg Day.  

Hinton moved to Lancaster in 1982, and he told a writer at Fox Chase Review "I love writing from this place, using it as my safe house. From here I am easily able to travel to places such as Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington to hear and experience live poetry. Lancaster can offer a small-town feel, a somewhat urban atmosphere and rural farming esthetics all in one location." 

Waiting for Brion (2004) was Hinton's first published poetry collection and includes poems varying in style and subject. His later collections, such as Black on Most Days (2008), which is centered on the many things the color black has come to represent, has a more focused style and subject. His other publications include The God of Our Dreams (2010), The Language of Moisture and Light (2014), Sing Silence (2018), and Elegies for an Empire (2023).  

Hinton's poems have also appeared in magazines such as Watershed, Gargoyle, Haggard and Halloo, Literary Chaos, and Bent Pin Quarterly. Little Patuxent Review  first published Hinton's "No Doubt About it (I Gotta Get Another Hat)" in 2013, and the poem was later selected for inclusion in The Best American Poetry 2014. "When I found out that the poem was chosen by guest editor, Terrance Hayes, whose work I've read closely and loved since 2010, I was stunned," Hinton said in a statement in Little Patuxent. "I am profoundly grateful to him and series editor, David Lehman for choosing [it]." 

A unique presentation of his work is "Our Ballpark," a poem that has been incorporated into a sculpture and installed outside the Penn Medicine Stadium in Lancaster. Common Thread, the sculpture by Derek Parker, together with Hinton's poem is a site on the Poetry Paths, a public visual and literary art project founded and produced by the Philadelphia Alumni Writers House at Franklin & Marshall College with funding from the Lancaster County Community Foundation. "I could be published in a prestigious poetry magazine, but that wouldn't mean anything to the ordinary person," Hinton told Pokorny. "Now when people ask if I have anything I can read somewhere, I tell them to come to Lancaster for a baseball game." 

Hinton's poem, "Epidemic," which won the Baltimore Review’s 2013 Winter Writers Contest, was also selected for publication in 2014 by the Pennsylvania Center for the Book’s Public Poetry Project.  

In 2011, Hinton retired as Program Manager from the Bureau of Disability Determination for Social Security under the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry, where he worked for 28 years. In 2024, he was recognized for this work and poetry with an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the Pennsylvania College of Art and Design. 

He continues to write and serve as co-editor of Fledgling Rag ."Poetry is universal," Hinton said in The Triangle. "We all write about the same subjects but in different ways. Love, loss, heartbreak—poetry does and should always bring people together...Poetry can bring community together and keep people informed."