James Lowell McPherson (January 25, 1921 – September 13, 2008) was born to Carolyn Mohorter and Clarence Lowell McPherson, in Cincinnati, Ohio. By 1930, they had moved to Lynchburg, Virginia, where McPherson graduated from high school. In 1937, the family relocated to Charleston, where his father became a life insurance salesman. McPherson attended Marshall College (now University) and Middlebury College in Vermont before graduating from West Virginia University with a degree in sociology. In 1942, he entered the Army and became radio operator for Headquarters Company of the 379^th Infantry of the 95^th Division.

As a child in Virginia, he had written various short stories, such as “The Bloom,” and won a statewide prize for best short story at age 15. While he was in the Army, his parents, without McPherson’s knowledge, submitted their son’s poem “West Virginia”—which he had written as a WVU student—to a contest held by the State of West Virginia to become the next state poet laureate, succeeding Roy Lee Harmon. On November 3, 1943, Governor Matthew Neely announced McPherson’s selection as the youngest poet laureate in state history (age 22). “West Virginia” was published in the West Virginia History journal (January 1944). Pfc McPherson was notified of his poet laureate appointment by mail. He served in the role until 1946, when he was succeeded by Harmon.

After the war he briefly did graduate work as a sociologist at Columbia University, where he met his first wife, Gertrude Wright. The couple had two children, Karen and Christopher McPherson.

His later poetry, including “To Carol” and “For Belgium,” focused more on his time in the war and was first nationally published in the Poetry Foundation’s magazine (1945). He received his first appearance award in 1948 for “The Party is Over,” “Walking at Night Two Years Later,” and “Inventory.” His only published novel, Goodbye Rosie, was released in 1965 by Knopf. While he had many other unpublished novels, he mainly focused on poetry, which appeared in such magazines as Exquisite Corpse, Nostalgia, Chelsea, Gettysburg Review, Comstock Review, and The Wallace Stevens Journal. He never published a collection of his own poetry, although his manuscripts were often among the finalists in competitions.

His daughter, Karen McPherson, a notable poet as well, arranged for the publication of a small volume of her father’s work called Straightening Out The Record in 2005. McPherson’s works “Remembering Twenty-three,” written at age 23 (1944), and “Remembering Fifty-three” (1974), written at age 53, were published posthumously in 2011 by The American Poetry Review.

Throughout his life, McPherson held multiple occupations. At various times, he was a professor and a postmaster in Marble Dale, Connecticut. After divorcing from his wife, he took a year off to travel about Europe with his typewriter. Afterward, he settled in New York, where he met his second wife, Phyllis King. They married in 1978 and lived together in Manhattan for 36 years until her death in 2007, when he moved to Eugene, Oregon, to be closer to Karen.

McPherson continued to write poetry until his death. Much of his work resides in The Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.