Wakoski is primarily associated with the deep image poets, as well as the confessional and Beat poets of the 1960s. Wakoski was born in Whittier, California and studied at the University of California, Berkeley and graduated in 1960 with a Bachelor of Arts, where she participated in Thom Gunn's poetry workshops. It was there that she first read many of the modernist poets who would influence her writing style. IN the interview she describes her life as a poet and being invited the Sir George Williams University Poetry Series (now Concordia University).