“Love lit a fire in my chest,
and anything that wasn’t love left:
intellectual subtlety, philosophy, books, school.
All I want now to do or hear is poetry.”
– Rumi -13th Century
Bio
Kate Peper grew up amidst a large and lively family in an old hunting lodge in Edina, Minnesota, surrounded by five acres of woods that provided her hours of exploration and solitude. All this figured prominently in Kate’s early artwork, beginning with drawing and watercolor and later inspiring her poetry.
After college, she found work as an animator and moved to California in 1994 to work in the then-thriving educational games industry. In the mid-2000s, she designed high-end carpets in San Francisco. All along, poetry and watercolor were her constant preoccupations and have been her main focus for the past 10 years.
She has taught creative writing as part of California Poets in the Schools as well as to older adults in retirement communities. She lives just north of San Francisco with her husband Bruce and their dog Hannah.
I used to sit in the hole
in our tire swing.
When the rope rotted, Papa and I
drove to a graveyard of old tires
and heaved it, re-tread flying.
- from the poem titled: “Holes”
