Keith Althaus

Alan Dugan Keith Keith Althaus (born 1946) is an American poet.

Life
Althaus was educated at Hamilton College. In 1969 he and his wife, artist Susan Baker, moved to North Truro, Massachusetts, where they run an art gallery.

Although Althaus has been writing poetry for more than four decades, he published his first book only in 1993. Since then he has also published Ladder of Hours, a collection of poetry spanning four decades. He has also published in the New Yorker, American Poetry Review, and many other Literary magazines.

Writing
Bill Gilson, Bloodaxe Blogs: "To readers used to poems in which words are juxtaposed in defiance of their everyday meanings, or to poems of deliberate ambiguity and fragmentation of syntax, an Althaus poem when viewed quickly can look like adequate prose split into phrases. The method risks flatness, and requires that the poem be so tightly constructed as to hold itself together as if with magnetized parts. Many poets have written in this style. It is an obvious way to begin, but the difficulty to which Althaus refers sets in immediately, in that the space to move is actually more restrictive than that within rhymes and meters.... But what matters are the details, the odd particularities in what is noticed, and the depths he is able to reach while maintaining a luminous clarity."

Recognition
His honors include a grant from the Massachusetts Council for the Arts, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Pushcart Prize.

Poetry

 * Rival Heavens. Provincetown Arts Press, 1993.
 * ''Ladder of Hours: Poems 1969-2005. Ausable Press, 2005.

Anthologized

 * Soul Food. Bloodaxe Books,2007.