Rafael Campo

• Name — Rafael Campo • Born — 24 November 1964 • Birthplace — Dover, New Jersey, United States • Education — * Amherst College • Harvard Medical School • Occupation — Physician • Field — Internal medicine • Work Institutions — * Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center • Harvard Medical School

Rafael Campo was born on November 24, 1964, in Dover, New Jersey to a Cuban Italian family. Campo graduated with a BA and MA from Amherst College. Campo continued his medical education at Harvard Medical School, graduating with a MD.

Campo began practising internal medicine in the early 1990s. Campo formally practiced medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts and was associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Campo is the poetry editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association. He served as a resident poet at Brandeis University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He frequently reads at colleges, including Brown University, Stanford University, and Colby-Sawyer College. He formerly taught in the Lesley University low-residency MFA writing program in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

His writing focuses on themes that promote equality and justice for gay people, people of color, and working-class people. His work has served as the inspiration for composers and other artists. His poem "Silence=Death" was set by composer Joseph Hallman and premiered as part of the AIDS Quilt Songbook Project. His work was included in the "Best American Poetry and Pushcart Prize" anthologies and has been published on numerous occasions in periodicals such as The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times Magazine, and The Washington Post "Book World".