Robert M. Chute is a native of Naples, Maine and was educated, according to Chute, with varying degrees of success, at Fryeburg Academy, the University of Maine, and Johns Hopkins University. He served in the U.S. Air Force in WWII, in the Aviation Physiology Unit of a Proving Ground Command. He joined the Bates College teaching staff as Chairman of the Biology Department in 1962. Wearing his scientific hat, he wrote Introduction to Biology and Environmental Insight both published by Harper and Row. Always aware of being a steward of our earth, lakes and trees, Chute was instrumental in the formation of COLA, The Congress of Lake Associations, dedicated to the study and protection of Maine lakes. He also served as chair of a state commission concerned with genetic modification of agricultural products. During the 1960s he produced and edited a mimeo poetry magazine, The Small Pond. Research in and Professing of Biology supported his poetry habit until retirement from Bates College in 1993. He received the Rhine Humanities Council chapbook award for Samuel Sewall Sails for Home and the Beloit Poetry Journal's Chad Walsh Award for the poem, Heat Wave in Concord. Chute was awarded the 2011 Distinguished Achievement Award by the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Chute ran as an independent protest candidate for the U. S. House during the Vietnam War and is an active supporter of Veterans for Peace.