About the Poet
Katherine Gekker is the author of In Search of Warm Breathing Things (Glass Lyre Press) and O My Charmer (Dancing Girl Press). Her poems have appeared in many journals, including Presence, Calyx, Rappahanock Review, and Baltimore Review. From 2021 to 2025, she served as Poetry Assistant Editor for Delmarva Review. As a poet with The Good Listening Project from 2019 to 2021, she wrote poems at Inova Schar Cancer Center for patients, caregivers, health care providers, and hospital staff.
Gekker’s poems, collectively called “…to Cast a Shadow Again,” have been set to music by composer Eric Ewazen. Composer Carson Cooman has set a seasonal cycle of her poems, “Chasing the Moon Down,” to music.
Gekker was born in Washington, DC. She has a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Virginia. She founded a commercial printing company in 1974 and sold it 31 years later.
Region
Northern
Virginia City or County Affiliation
Arlington
Years of Residence in Virginia
70
Current City/State of Residence
Arlington
Gender
Female
Year of Birth
1950
Keywords/Tags
music, language, nature
Website
Published Works or Performances
Books:
In Search of Warm Breathing Things (Glass Lyre Press, 2019)
O My Charmer (Dancing Girl Press, 2026)
Poems:
“November Constellations — 4 am” (In Anacapa Review, Volume 4, Number 1, 2026)
“In Search of the Warm Breathing Things,” “Solving for the Unknown,” “Sonata #19,” and “Past Tense” (In Apple Valley Review, Volume 12, Number 1, 2017 and Volume 13, Number 1, 2018)
“Abandon” (In The ASP Bulletin, 2023)
“Annual Wellness Check,” and “Root Cellar” (In Baltimore Review: Spring 2024 and Spring 2020)
“The Day I Fell in Love 3 Times on the Metro” (2024); “Bremerhaven, Germany, January 1954” (2023); “I, Pluto” (2022) (In Bay to Ocean Journal: The Year’s Best Writing from the Eastern Shore Writers Association)
“Inside a Coffee Shop,” “Nature’s Cadenza,” “Near Meander River, Near Miletus,” and “Now, Four Blizzards” (In The Broadkill Review, September 2017)
“I’m Still Pluto” (In Byrd Whistle: No. 1, March 2026)
“New Year's Eve Fog. 6 am” (In CALYX, Vol 35:1 2025)
“Jazz Nest of Its Mind” (February 16, 1973); “Blowing Bubbles” (October 6, 1972) (In The Cavalier Daily Literary Supplement, also published in Childhood Poems)
“Cherry Tree Kabuki” (In Chronicle of Higher Education, April 2010)
“Ostinato” (In Claudius Speaks, July 31, 2017)
“Butterfly Poster, Printing Company,” “September — Arlington, Virginia.” (In Cobalt Review, pages 25 & 26 of Issue 18, January 2017)
“Huna Tlingit Woman,” (In Connecticut River Review, 2018)
“When / Then / That,” “The Wind, The Wind,” (In Delmarva Review: Volume 13, November 2020); “I Am the Last Radium Girl,” (Volume 12, November 2019); “Bodrum Hamam,” “Sleeping Beauty is the Keeper of Language,” (Volume 11, November 2018)
“Labor Day Visit with Grandfather,” (In District Lines IV, January 2017)
“Peugeot 403 Driving Lesson. Pentagon Parking Lot, 1965,” “Miocene Age Shark Tooth Hunt,” “Safeway Parking Lot at Night” (In Gargoyle 11, 2025); “Memory’s Snake,” “Autobiography” (Gargoyle 74, 2021)
Translations of four of Gekker's poems from Greek to English by Chrysoula Patronou-Papaterpou (In Hartis, October 2025)
“The Bandage Comes Undone,” (The Hopkins Review, forthcoming 2026)
“Alcohol Beckons Constantly, Derails” (In Last Call:The Anthology of Beer, Wine & Spirits Poetry, 2018)
“Rutting Fall,” (In Little Patuxent Review, June 2015)
“Spring Nocturne” (In Maryland Literary Review, 2025)
“Beluga Pangaea” (In Northern Virginia Review, 2012); “Ice Waterfall” (2007); “Smoke” (2006); “Time Will Tell,” (published as “Untitled”, 2013)
“Midnight Garden Walk, Key West,” (In Panoply, January 2017)
“On the Avenue of the Dead,” (In Poetry South, Issue 16, December 2024); “Language Consumes Fire” and “The World Trembles, The World Masquerades,” (Issue 9, December 2017)
“Always in the Black” and “Separating the Immutable" (In Positively Prince Street, 1979)
“DC Winter | Knoxville: Summer of 1915,” (In Presence, 2026)
“Death Metal Supernova” (In Quartet Journal, Vol. 6, Issue 2); “Erinnerung” (Vol. 5, Issue 2); “Egg/Lion/Stone,” (Vol. 1, Issue 1) (now titled “Language & I Are on Vacation”)
“Woodpile Reliquary” (In Rappahannock Review, Issue 13.2, May 2026); “O, My Charmer, Spare Me” (Issue 11.1, December 2023)
“Passport for the Stateless” (In Second Coming, No. 393, February 16, 2026)
“Beluga Pangaea” (In She Writes: Visions and Voices of Seaside Scribes, Salt Water Media, 2018)
“Refracted Light” (In Whistling Fire, June 2011)
“Open Wide, Try Singing” (In Women Writers Anthology, 1455 Books, September 2026)
“Overnight Maples Turn into Pumpkins,” “September — Arlington, Virginia,” (In Written in Arlington, 2020)
Essays
“The Struggle to Ensure That Learning Takes Place” (In Chronicle of Higher Education, August 2012)
Music Scores
“To Cast a Shadow Again” (In Keiser Southern Music, 2005)
“Chasing the Moon Down” (series includes “The Dog Hates Storms,” “Ice Waterfall,” “Overnight Maples Turn into Pumpkins,” “Scar in the Moon”), (In Musik Fabrik Musik Publishing, 2009)
Performance
Owl: Radio broadcast of Gekker poems with music (On River West Radio, February 25, 2026)
Multiple live performances of "To Cast a Shadow Again," and "Chasing the Moon Down," both nationally and internationally, as well as multiple recordings
Katherine Gekker