Henderson, born in Kitchener, Ontario, has a PhD in Canadian Literature from York University. He has published many articles and reviews, and is also the Director of Wilfrid Laurier University Press and a photographer. Henderson has worked as a university instructor, a phone jack installer, a traffic counter, a shipper/receiver, and a rock drummer.

He is the author of eight collections of poetry and a deck of visual poem-cards. His work has been published in many small magazines. In the 1970s Henderson was a founding editor of RUNE.

He lives with his wife, Charlene, son, Adrian and step son, Sean.

His poetry and literary criticism has appeared in Arc, Antigonish Review, Canadian Forum, Canadian Literature, CVII, Descant, ECW, The fiddlehead, Prism, Quarry, Rampike, Rune (of which he was a founding editor for its decade of existence), Scrivener and Writ since 1974.

Books:

• Nerve Language, Pedlar Press, 2007
• Light in Dark Objects, Ekstasis Editions, 2000
• Year Zero, Brick Books, 1995
• Smoking Mirror, ECW Press, 1990
• The Alphamiricon, Underwhich Editions, 1987
• Migration of Light, General Publishing, 1983
• The Veridical Book of the Silent Planet, Aya Press, 1978
• Paracelsus, Porcupine's Quill, 1977
• The Expanding Room, Black Moss Press, 1977

Anthologies:

• W.H. New, ed., Inside the Poem, Oxford University Press, 1992
• Robert Allen, ed., The Lyric Paragraph, D.C. Books, 1987
• Leslie Nutting, ed., The Toronto Collection, Manoeuvers Press, 1984
• Ken Norris, Twenty Canadian Poets of the Eighties, Anansi, 1984