University of Virginia, MA Thomas Joseph Reiter (March 7, 1940 – April 24, 2022) was an American poet, author, scholar, critic and lecturer.

[citation needed] In 1968, he joined the faculty of the English department of Monmouth University, and was eventually promoted to associate and then full professor.

[3] Reiter is the author of ten collections of narrative and lyric poems,[2] whose settings were a wide variety of locales such as the Midwest, the prairie, the Mississippi River, the Pine Barrens, and the Caribbean.

[4] Reiter's poetic signature and trademark is his vast knowledge of botany,[citation needed] and poet Brendan Galvin referred to him as "probably the finest poet-botanizer since Robert Frost.

[6][7][8] In 2000, his eighth collection of poetry, Pearly Everlasting, was submitted by Louisiana State University Press for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Original Verse.