Ken Lauter

Approaching 70,I still hunger to improve at what Chaucer calls “the craft so longe to learne,” by which he meant both poetry and love-- and my primary life raft, though a bit battered after years at sea, still consists of those utterly ephemeral yet steel-strong things: words.

After resigning from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1964-- both because of my opposition to the Vietnam war and the discovery that I was more interested in Shakespeare than ships-- I studied first with Dan Jaffe at the University of Missouri at Kansas City and then with Donald Hall (US Poet Laureate 2005-06) at Michigan.

My early work has been compared to Robert Lowell’s, and distinguished poet William Meredith (Poetry Consultant, Library of Congress, 1978-80) has said that my poetry displays “a splendid and various gift.”

My plays include The Dancing Apsárás, or Captain Willard’s Blues (a prequel/sequel to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now) and Knowing Their Names, a one-act farce in honor of legendary British actor/director/dramatist Steven Berkoff.

In addition to teaching poetry writing and literature atfour universities, I've worked as mayor's aide in economic development in St. Louis and as an environmental activist in Tucson.