Bob Perelman (born December 2, 1947 in Youngstown, Ohio) is an American poet, critic, editor and teacher. He was an early exponent of the Language poets, an avant-garde movement, originating in the 1970s. He has helped shape a "formally adventurous, politically explicit poetic practice in the United States," according to one of his chroniclers. Perelman is Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.