A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and one of the founders of the Creative Writing MFA Program at the University of Arizona, poet Steve Orlen passed away in November 2010. The University of Arizona has created a memorial page to honor the poet. Orlen taught poetry at the University of Arizona for 37 years.

Steve Orlen was the author of six books of poetry, including The Elephant’s Child: New and Selected Poems 1978-2005, Kisses, and This Particular Eternity. He won fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the George Dillon Memorial Award from Poetry magazine. Besides teaching at the University of Arizona, Orlen served as a visiting faculty member over the years at the University of Houston, Warren Wilson College, Goddard College and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.