Aaron Gedaliah is a San Francisco-based poet of the psyche whose work explores the deepest intersections of philosophy, psychoanalysis and the human condition. All three of his previous collections have received Kirkus Reviews BUY IT verdicts — among the most coveted distinctions in independent literary publishing — and two have been honored with the Literary Titan Book Award for Poetry.
He began his journey into poetry following transformative experiences at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California in 1990, where he first understood that poetry could name what other forms of language could not reach. He owes his entry into poetry composition to his late friend and teacher Seymour Carter, and studied formally with Mike Calvello at City College of San Francisco in 1991. More recently he’s studied poetry composition with Bay Area poet Sabina Khan-Ibarra. His greatest literary influences are Rainer Maria Rilke, Sylvia Plath, Antonio Machado, Wendell Berry and Loren Eiseley.
Gedaliah was able to concentrate fully on his writing following retirement, beginning in earnest in June 2023. His debut collection The False God's Lullaby (2023) — consisting largely of poems and prose written after 2005 — received both a Kirkus Reviews BUY IT verdict and the Literary Titan Silver Book Award for Poetry. His second collection Secondary Worlds (2024) received a Kirkus Reviews BUY IT verdict. His third collection What We Hold No Longer (September 2025) — described by Literary Titan as a collection of poems that circle around memory, aging, identity and the haunting void that lies beneath it all, blending the deeply personal with the philosophical, balancing childhood recollections with meditations on mortality, politics and the quiet strangeness of being human — received both a Kirkus Reviews BUY IT verdict and the Literary Titan Book Award for Poetry.
His fourth collection Ceylon Moon publishes October 15th 2026 through BookBaby. Accompanied throughout by original oil paintings by award-winning San Francisco artist Martha Diaz, the collection brings together 39 poems across five thematic sections — exploring grief, loss, love, mortality and the unexpected moments of grace that make a life worth living. Ceylon Moon has been compared to Ada Limón's The Carrying and operates in the same interior register as Rilke's The Book of Hours — with the same willingness to hold silence and uncertainty without resolution. It is available for pre-order now.
