Raised in Brooklyn and educated at the City College of New York, Feldman completed his Master of Arts degree at Columbia University in 1953. His first academic appointments were at the University of Puerto Rico and the University of Lyon in France. Returning to the continental United States in 1958, he taught at Kenyon College until 1964, when he was appointed professor of English at the State University of New York, Buffalo, where he was eventually appointed Distinguished Professor of English; he retired from teaching in 2004. In 1992 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.

• Works and Days (1961)

• The Pripet Marshes (1965)

• Magic Papers (1970)

• Lost Originals (1972)

• Leaping Clear (1976)

• New and Selected Poems (1979)

• Teach Me, Dear Sister (1983)

• All of Us Here (1986)

• The Life and Letters (1994)

• Beautiful False Things: Poems (2000)

• Collected Poems, 1954-2004 (2004)