Paul Hamilton Engle (October 12, 1908 – March 22, 1991), was an American poet, editor, teacher, literary critic, novelist, and playwright.

[1] As a student at Iowa, Engle was one of the earliest recipients of an advanced degree awarded for creative work: his first collection Worn Earth, which went on to win the Yale Series of Younger Poets.

Robert Lowell, John Berryman, Robie Macauley, Kurt Vonnegut and many other prominent novelists and poets served as faculty under Engle.

He increased enrollment and oversaw numerous students of future fame and influence, including Flannery O'Connor, Philip Levine, Mark Costello, Marvin Bell, Joe Nicholson, Sunil Gangopadhyay, Donald Justice, Raymond Carver, Douglas Kent Hall, Andre Dubus, and Robert Bly.

[5][6] At the time of his death (in Chicago's O'Hare Airport on his way to accept an award in Poland), Engle was the author of more than a dozen collections of poetry, a novel, a memoir, an opera libretto (for Philip Bezanson), and even a children's book.