Louis McKee (born July 31, 1951, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) has been a fixture on the Philadelphia poetry scene since the early 70s. He is the author of Schuylkill County (Wampeter, 1982), The True Speed of Things (Slash & Burn, 1984), and eleven other collections. More recently, he has published River Architecture: Poems from Here & There 1973-1993 (Cynic, 1999), Near Occasions of Sin (Cynic, 2006), and a collection of translations of Old Irish monastic poems, Marginalia (Adastra, 2008). Gerald Stern has called his work “heart-breaking” and “necessary,” while William Stafford has written, “Louis McKee makes me think of how much fun it was to put your hand out a car window and make the air carry you into quick adventures and curlicues. He is so adept at turning all kinds of sudden glimpses into good patterns.” Naomi Shihab Nye has said, “Louis McKee is one of the truest hearts and voices in poetry we will ever be lucky to know.”
Louis McKee
Home Page
You think you could not have mattered
that much...
I pick up the right stone
and throw it; watch the river change.
"What Matters"
