He was born a child of a military family, moving year-by-year until finally settling in his high-school years on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

His poems, which include themes of spirituality, sexuality, mortality, and faith,[2] are featured in American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets (2006) and many other anthologies.

In 2015, Phillips released his 13th collection of poems, Reconnaissance, which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Best Poetry and appeared on the Top Books list from Canada's The Globe and Mail.

[10] Then the War is described by his publisher as "luminous testimony to the power of self-reckoning and to Carl Phillips as an ever-changing, necessary voice in contemporary poetry".

[19] Philips has also held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Library of Congress, and the Academy of American Poets, for which he served as chancellor from 2006 to 2012.

[15] Phillips was shortlisted for the 2024 T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, alongside Karen McCarthy Woolf, Raymond Antrobus, Gboyega Odubanjo, Rachel Mann and others.