Leah Bodine Drake was born in Chanute, Kansas in 1914. She attended Hamilton College for Women and Sayre College. She briefly worked as a Billy Rose dancer in a revue at the Fort Worth, Texas Centennial Exposition. Ms. Drake's poems were published in The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post and The Saturday Review. She was also a regular contributor to The Atlantic Monthly. She received many awards from the Poetry Society of America and was also twice a recipient of a Borestone Mountain Poetry Award. Her first book of poetry A Hornbook for Witches was published in 1950 by Arkham House.