Paul Mariani (born 1940 in New York City) is an American poet and is University Professor Emeritus at Boston College.
Born February 29, 1940 in Astoria, Queens, he grew up in New York City and Long Island and is the oldest of seven children.
Mariani has lectured and given readings widely in the United States and abroad and has published over 250 essays, introductions, chapters in anthologies and scholarly encyclopedias, and reviews, as well as being the author of 21 books.
In September 2019 he was presented with the inaugural Flannery O’Connor Lifetime Achievement Award at the Catholic Imagination Conference held at Loyola University Chicago.
James Franco's film biopic of Hart Crane, The Broken Tower, released in 2012, is based on Mariani's biography of the same title.