Harry Weldon Kees (February 24, 1914 – disappeared July 18, 1955) was an American poet, painter, literary critic, novelist, playwright, jazz pianist, short story writer, and filmmaker. Despite his brief career, Kees is considered an important mid-twentieth-century poet of the same generation as John Berryman, Elizabeth Bishop, and Robert Lowell. His work has been immensely influential on subsequent generations of poets writing in English and other languages and his collected poems have been included in many anthologies. Harold Bloom lists the publication of Kees's first book The Last Man (1943) as an important event in the chronology of his textbook Modern American Poetry as well as a book worthy of his Western Canon. Early life and education Weldon Kees was born in Beatrice, Nebraska, to John Kees, a hardware manufacturer, and Sarah Green Kees, a schoolteacher. The Kees family was well-to-do, John being part owner of F.D. Kees Manufacturing Co., which patented and produced corn-husking hooks as well as innovative products such as a window defroster for automobiles and a moving lawn sprinkler that resembled a farm tractor. Weldon was a precocious child whose playmates included Robert Taylor and whose pastimes included producing his own magazines, giving puppet shows and even acting. He was treated like a small adult by his parents, whom he addressed by their first names. Kees's worldview and writing were shaped by the Jazz Age and his early adulthood during the Great Depression. By the time he graduated from high school in 1931, he rejected entering the family business and, while at Doane College, decided to become a novelist. He transferred to the University of Missouri, which had a writing program, and then to the University of Nebraska, where he was mentored by the founding editor of the literary journal Prairie Schooner, Lowery C. Wimberley. By the time Kees graduated in 1935, he had already written and published short stories in that journal as well as other literary magazines such as Horizon and Rocky Mountain Review. While working for the Federal Writers' Project in Lincoln, Nebraska, and after having suffered the rejection of several novels, Kees turned to writing poetry—and, for a time, engaged in union organizing and considered himself a communist. In 1937, Kees moved to Colorado to earn a degree in library science at the University of Denver, which included working as a librarian at the Denver Public Library. Career He then became director