Ben Doller (previously Doyle) was born in Warsaw, New York, in 1973. He completed his undergraduate education at the State University of New York at Oswego and West Virginia University.

His first collection of poetry, Radio, Radio, (Louisiana State University Press, 2001) was selected by Susan Howe for the 2000 Walt Whitman Award. He received his MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he was awarded a Teaching-Writing Fellowship.

Doller has taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, West Virginia University, Denison University, and was Distinguished Visiting Professor at Boise State University in 2007.

He is co-editor of the Kuhl House Contemporary Poetry Series at the University of Iowa Press, and is vice editor and designer of 1913 a journal of forms and 1913 Press.

He lives in San Diego with his wife, the poet Sandra Doller (formerly Miller).