Past Lives

Irene McKinney is the author of four books of poetry, including Vivid Companion (Vandalia Press, 2004) and Six O’clock Mine Report (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989). In 1994, she was appointed Poet Laureate of West Virginia. Her poems have appeared in The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, Poetry Northwest , Shenandoah , and Southern Poetry Review , among others. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Award in poetry and a scholarship to attend the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference. McKinney also earned two West Virginia Commission on the Arts Fellowships and has been awarded residencies at MacDowell Colony, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Blue Mountain Center. She has been writer-in-residence at Western Washington University at Bellingham, The University of New Mexico at Albuquerque, University of California at Santa Cruz, and Hamilton College. McKinney contributes to programs on National Public Radio and is professor emerita at West Virginia Wesleyan College.