Raised on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Western Montana, Kevin Goodan began working for the U.S. Forest Service at a young age, and attended the Universities of Montana and Massachusetts. His debut collection, In the Ghost-House Acquainted (Alice James Books), won the 2005 L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award for Poetry, selected by Mary Oliver.

His poems have been published in Ploughshares and other journals. Currently, he resides on a small farm in Western Massachusetts.

Kevin Goodan

The orchards unfold as if God
might fall asleep at any moment. Forever.
In the morning there is still frost at work
on the blossoms.

    from "Tonasket Elegy"

"...a voice that connects joy with holiness, and sorrow with mystery, and all of this in a language as sharp as flint and as earthborn as the lamb....In the Ghost-House Acquainted is extraordinary."
—Mary Oliver, in her judge's citation for the L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award

"…laid-back, and yet elegantly formal poems…call to mind Robert Frost in their reflecting on the day-to-day details of a rural existence, both the drudgery of tasks like feeding livestock and the quiet meditations on nature."
—Library Journal

Selections from In the Ghost-House Acquainted
(Alice James Books)

do not fear the snow fear not the lion
Near the Heart of Happening
A Tone Struck. Still Ringing
Tonasket Elegy
Vernal
Canticle for the Day-Labor