Vern Rutsala was born in 1934 in McCall, Idaho. He moved to Portland, Oregon in the early 1940s where he attended Milwaukie High School. Rutsala received his BA from Reed College in 1956 and an MFA from the University of Iowa in 1960. He taught English at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon from 1961-2004.

As a poet, Rutsala has published over 700 poems in poetry journals including Atlantic Monthly, Times Literary Supplement, New Yorker, Midland, Poetry, Harper's, American Poetry Review, Chicago Review, Mississippi Review, Nebraska Review, Seneca Review, and New Letters. Rutsala has penned sixteen books of poetry, and has been featured in numerous anthologies. Poetry prizes received by Rutsala include the Carolyn Kizer Poetry Prize (twice), a Pushcart Prize, a fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, an Oregon Masters fellowship, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Juniper Prize for his book, the Oregon Book Award, the Richard Snyder Prize, the Kenneth O. Hanson Award, the Akron Poetry Prize, and a finalist selection for the National Book Award for The Moment's Equation.

Rutsala resides in Portland, Oregon.