Elizabeth Gordon McKim is a poet, spoken word performance artist, editor, and teacher of poetry for people of all ages. She is the author of eight collections of poetry, and one teaching guide Beyond Words co-authored with Judith Steinbergh poet laureate of Brookline. Her poems and essays have appeared in many magazines, reviews and journals including Ploughshares, Poetry and Drum Voices. She is Poetry Editor of the international journal POIESIS published in Toronto Canada. Her book of poetry The Red Thread was published by Leapfrog Press edited by Marge Piercy and published by Ira Wood.
McKim was in the pilot project in Boston of PWT: Poets Who Teach in 1971 with poet Ruth Whitman and she is also a pioneer member of the Arts Institute for Expressive Therapy at Lesley University since 1974 under the direction of Shaun McNiff. She is now a member of the graduate faculty of Lesley University where she has been an adjunct faculty member for over forty years, and she has worked with teachers throughout the US, helping them to weave poetry into their daily life and curriculum. She teaches in the Lesley Creative Arts in Learning department where she has enjoyed friends, colleagues and comrades for many years.
McKim’s roots are in the Oral Tradition of song, story, improvisation and poem. She has read and performed her poetry in countless venues, locally and abroad. She loves to work improvisationally with musicians, dancers, visual artists, and she teaches from a multi-arts trans-cultural perspective .
McKim also has learned with and from children of all ages as she guides them into writing original poems and reading poetry out loud. Elizabeth has worked all over the US helping teachers to weave poetry into the daily life and curriculum of their classrooms.
Elizabeth Gordon McKim is the Poet Laureate of the European Graduate School in the Alpine village of Saas Fee Switzerland situated in the mountains between Zurich and Geneva. She lives in Lynn, Massachusetts where she is familiarly known as the Jazz Poet of Lynn. She lives with her partner David Gowdy in a renovated shoe factory in Central Square and is often found at the magical open mic evenings at the Walnut St. Café, fostered by Storyteller host Tony Toledo and founded bySinger-songwriter Don White with the support of proprietor Jim Chalmers.