Of his work, Amiri Baraka has said, "Steve Dalachinsky is a poet of the real world in a time when reality is despised, dismissed, not understood or lied about."
Author of the chapbooks The Mantis, written for pianist Cecil Taylor, and Long Play E.P., written for saxophonist Evan Parker, Dalachinsky also received the Franz Kafka Prize and an Acker Award, and was nominated for a 2015 Pushcart Prize. He lived in Manhattan with his wife, painter and poet Yuko Otomo, and died on September 15, 2019.