# Peter Cooley

> Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Peter_Cooley
> Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Peter_Cooley.md
> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Cooley
> Source revision: 1329150335
> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

**Peter Cooley** (born November 19, 1940) is an American poet and Professor of English in the Department of English at [Tulane University](/source/Tulane_University). He also directs Tulane's Creative Writing Program. Born in [Detroit](/source/Detroit), [Michigan](/source/Michigan), he holds degrees from [Shimer College](/source/Shimer_College), the [University of Chicago](/source/University_of_Chicago) and the [University of Iowa](/source/University_of_Iowa).[1] He is the father of poet [Nicole Cooley](/source/Nicole_Cooley).

## Career

Prior to joining [Tulane](/source/Tulane), Cooley taught at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. He was the [Robert Frost](/source/Robert_Frost) Fellow at the [Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference](/source/Bread_Loaf_Writers'_Conference) in 1981.

## Poetry and awards

Cooley has published several books of poetry with the [Carnegie Mellon University Press](/source/Carnegie_Mellon_University_Press).[2] He received the Inspirational Professor Award in 2001 and the Newcomb Professor of the Year Award in 2003.[3] On August 14, 2015 he was named Louisiana's poet laureate.[4][5][6]

## Bibliography

### Poetry

**Collections**

- Cooley, Peter (1975). *The company of strangers*. University of Missouri Press.
- *The Room Where Summer Ends* (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1979)
- *Nightseasons* (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1983)
- *The Van Gogh Notebook* (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1987)
- *The Astonished Hours* (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1992)
- *Sacred Conversations* (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1998)
- *A Place Made of Starlight* (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2003)
- *Divine Margins* (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2009)
- *Night Bus to the Afterlife* (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2014)
- *World Without Finishing* (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2018)
- *The One Certain Thing* (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2021)

**List of poems**

Title Year First published Reprinted/collected Company of the motel room 2013 Cooley, Peter (November 4, 2013). "Company of the motel room". The New Yorker. Vol. 89, no. 35. p. 59.

## References

1. [*The Literary Encyclopedia*](http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1005) Accessed August 13, 2008.

1. [Carnegie Mellon University Press Poetry Titles](http://www.cmu.edu/universitypress/browse/poetry/poetry_backlist.html) [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20100528060822/http://www.cmu.edu/universitypress/browse/poetry/poetry_backlist.html) 2010-05-28 at the Wayback Machine Accessed August 13, 2008.

1. [Peter Cooley's faculty page](http://tulane.edu/liberal-arts/english/faculty/peter-cooley.cfm) [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20170925085002/http://www2.tulane.edu/liberal-arts/english/faculty/peter-cooley.cfm) 2017-09-25 at the Wayback Machine, Tulane University. Accessed August 15, 2015.

1. Nola.com editors (August 15, 2015). ["Tulane professor Peter Cooley is Louisiana's next poet laureate"](http://www.nola.com/books/index.ssf/2015/08/peter_cooley_poet_laureate_lou.html). *The Times-Picayune*. Retrieved August 15, 2015.

1. ["Louisiana Poet Laureate"](https://leh.org/our-work/special-initiatives/louisiana-poet-laureate/). *Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities*. Retrieved 5 August 2022.

1. ["Louisiana"](https://guides.loc.gov/united-states-state-poets-laureate/hawaii-maryland#s-lib-ctab-28174969-7). *The Library of Congress*. Retrieved 30 July 2022.

## External links

- [Peter Cooley listing in *The Literary Encyclopedia*](http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1005)
- [Peter Cooley’s faculty page](http://tulane.edu/liberal-arts/english/faculty/peter-cooley.cfm) [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20170925085002/http://www2.tulane.edu/liberal-arts/english/faculty/peter-cooley.cfm) 2017-09-25 at the Wayback Machine, Tulane University
- [Video of Peter Cooley reading from *Sacred Conversations* at Tulane, circa 1998](https://www.youtube.com/tZgrNTdYKiY) on YouTube
- [Peter Cooley author page at *Virginia Quarterly Review*, with links to poems](http://www.vqronline.org/author/24/peter-cooley/) [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20130626035055/http://www.vqronline.org/author/24/peter-cooley/) 2013-06-26 at the Wayback Machine

---
Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Peter Cooley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Cooley) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Cooley?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.