Louis Oliver

• Name — Louis Oliver • Native Name — Wotkoce • Born — 9 April 1904 • Birthplace — Coweta, Indian Territory • Died — 10 May 1991 • Place of death — Muskogee, Oklahoma • Occupation — writer • Language — English, Muscogee • Education — Bacone College • Awards — Alexander Posey Literary Award (1987)

Oliver was born on April 9, 1904, in Coweta, Indian Territory, which became part of Oklahoma in 1907. His parents died when he was young and he was raised by relatives in Okfuskee. He studied at the Euchee Indian School and then Bacone College, where he graduated in 1926. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he earned a diploma in 1926, an accomplishment that alienated some other Muscogee who accused him of "capitulating to the White Man's ways".

• Illustration — Maskoke Okisce (Creek Fable) on display in Leiden While living among the Cherokee in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, in the early 1980s, Oliver joined a writing group that included several published authors, and moved away from the more classical European forms of poetry that he had been practicing until then. He became the author of two books of poetry, Caught in a willow net: poems and stories (Greenfield Review Press, 1983) and Chasers of the Sun: Creek Indian thoughts (Greenfield Review Press, 1990). One of his poems, about and in the form of a tornado, is included in the Wall poems in Leiden outdoor poetry project in Leiden, Netherlands.

He died on May 10, 1991, in Muskogee, Oklahoma.