Kyger studied at Santa Barbara College but left before graduating. She moved to San Francisco and became involved with the poetry scene around Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan.
In 1959 she moved to Japan with Gary Snyder and then travelled to India with Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlofsky. She returned to the United States in 1964 and her first book, The Tapestry and the Web was published the next year.
Kyger has published sixteen books of poetry and prose, including Going On : selected poems, 1958-1980 (1983) and Just Space: poems, 1979-1989 ([[1991]). She has lived in Bolinas since 1968, where she has edited the local newspaper and done some occasional teaching at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado.