Irene Durrett McKinney, professor emerita at West Virginia Wesleyan College and poet laureate of the state of West Virginia, died last week at her family farm and birthplace in Belington, West Virginia, after an eight-year battle with cancer. She was 72 years old.
Professor McKinney was a graduate of West Virginia Wesleyan College. She earned a master’s degree at West Virginia University and a Ph.D. at the University of Utah.
McKinney was the author of six books of poetry: The Girl With the Stone in Her Lap (North Atlantic Books, 1976), The Wasps at the Blue Hexagons (Small Plot Press, 1982), Quick Fire and Slow Fire (North Atlantic Books, 1988), Six O’Clock Mine Report (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989), Vivid Companion (West Virginia University Press, 2004), Unthinkable: Selected Poems 1976-2004 (Red Hen Press, 2009) and Have You Had Enough Darkness Yet? No, I Haven’t Had Enough Darkness, which is forthcoming from Red Hen Press.