Katherine Gekker’s first full-length collection, In Search of Warm Breathing Things, was published by Glass Lyre Press in 2019.
Her poetry has been called “affecting” and “elusive” by the New York Times, and “ethereal” and “sensuous” by other newspapers. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart Prizes.
Gekker’s series of poems, “… to cast a shadow again,” was set to music by composer Eric Ewazen, and has been issued on the CD, Ewazen: Chamber Music. Keiser Southern Music is the publisher of the score.
Composer Carson Cooman has set a seasonal cycle of Gekker’s poems to music. This piece, “Chasing the Moon Down,” was premiered in Washington, DC, on January 15, 2010, and is included on the CD Rising at Dawn. Musik Fabrik is the score’s publisher.
Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Rappahannock Review, Delmarva Review, Little Patuxent Review, Gargoyle, ASP Bulletin, Broadkill Review, Baltimore Review, Northern Virginia Review, Poetry South, Claudius Speaks, Last Call Anthology, and others. A collection of eight poems, Childhood Poems, was published in 1974.
Delmarva Public Radio’s Harold Wilson interviewed Gekker on Writer’s Edition #78.
Gekker’s essay, “The Struggle to Ensure Learning Takes Place” was published by The Chronicle of Higher Education.
She serves as Poetry Assistant Editor at Delmarva Review. From 2019 to 2021, as a Listener Poet with The Good Listening Project, she wrote over 150 poems for patients, caregivers, and medical staff.
Gekker was born in Washington, DC. She founded a commercial printing company in 1974 and sold it 31 years later.