The Poet Who Vanished: Weldon Kees and the Golden Gate Mystery
On the morning of July 19, 1955, a highway patrol officer discovered a 1954 Plymouth Savoy abandoned on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge. The keys were still in the ignition, and the car belonged to a 41-year-old poet named Harry Weldon Kees (The Doe Network 2022). Nearly seventy years later, Kees remains one of American literature's most haunting mysteries—a talented artist who seemingly walked into the fog and never returned.
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| Weldon Kees in May 1954 | Photograph by Bob Helm | Courtesy of James Reidel, the author of Vanished Act: The Life and Work of Weldon Kees |
The Last Day
The final chapter of Weldon Kees's story began on Monday, July 18, 1955. That afternoon, he made two crucial phone calls to women who knew him well. The first was to Janet Richards, who was unfortunately rushing out to pick up her mother-in-law from the airport. "Things are pretty bad," Kees told her, adding ominously, "I may go to Mexico. To stay" (Lane 2005). Richards, distracted by her errand, couldn't offer the help he might have needed. She would later say, "I felt like a murderer."
His second call was to Pauline Kael—yes, the future legendary film critic—who had become a regular guest on Kees's radio show "Behind the Movie Camera." At the end of their conversation, Kees asked her a question that would echo with tragic prescience: "What keeps you going?" (Lane 2005).
The next day, his car was found empty on the bridge approach. His apartment revealed only his cat, Lonesome, and a pair of red socks in the sink. Missing were his wallet, watch, sleeping bag, and savings account book, though the $800 balance remained untouched (The Doe Network 2022). There was no suicide note.
A Life of Restless Creation
Weldon Kees was born on February 24, 1914, in Beatrice, Nebraska, into a world of midwestern prosperity (Academy of American Poets 2025). His father, John Kees, ran the F.D. Kees Manufacturing Company, which produced hardware and farm implements. At the same time, his mother, Sarah, was a formidable presence who was a member of societies like the "Americans of Royal Descent" (Lane 2005). From this stable but constraining environment emerged an artist of remarkable versatility who would never quite find his place in the world.
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| From the Omaha Daily Bee, June 29, 1919 |
Kees was a true Renaissance figure of mid-century American arts. He wrote poetry, fiction, and film criticism; composed jazz music; painted abstract expressionist works; produced experimental films; and collaborated on academic books about nonverbal communication (Academy of American Poets 2025). His paintings were exhibited alongside those of Willem de Kooning, and his poems appeared in prestigious magazines. His intellectual circle included future luminaries such as Hugh Kenner and Lawrence Ferlinghetti—then still known by his birth name, Lawrence Ferling (Lane 2005).
Yet for all his talents, Kees seemed perpetually displaced. As critic Anthony Lane observed, he appeared in photographs "not an insider but an intruder, somebody from out of town who may leave the party at any time" (Lane 2005). Even in his artistic prime, there was something spectral about him, as if he were already beginning to fade.
The Robinson Poems: A Literary Legacy
Kees's most enduring contribution to American literature may be his sequence of four "Robinson" poems, featuring a mysterious urban everyman who served as his poetic alter ego. These poems captured the alienation and anxiety of post-war American life with remarkable prescience. As poet Kathleen Rooney, who wrote an entire collection inspired by Kees's Robinson, explains: "The Robinson series is one of Kees's projects that I would have liked to read more of, but there isn't any more" (Rooney 2013).
The Robinson character embodied what Rooney calls Kees's "ludic" quality—his sense of poetry as "a serious game that he is very good at and is having a good time playing" (Rooney 2013). Even his most bitter poems, like "For My Daughter"—about a daughter he never had and never wanted to have in such a world—contain an element of sophisticated play, a "fake-out" that demonstrates his artistic control even when expressing despair.
The Aesthetics of Disappearance
What makes Kees's vanishing so compelling is how it seems to complete his artistic vision. Throughout his work, he was preoccupied with the themes of absence, isolation, and the fragility of identity in modern America. His Robinson poems explore what Rooney identifies as "a horror of solipsism: the idea that things disappear when you're not there to look at them" (Rooney 2013).
When Donald Justice edited Kees's Collected Poems five years after the disappearance, he wrote that Kees was "among the three or four best of his generation," praising his "particular tone of voice which we have never heard before" (Academy of American Poets 2025). But the timing of that recognition—coming only after Kees's presumed death—adds another layer to the tragedy. As biographer James Reidel extensively documents, Kees struggled throughout his life with depression and a sense that his artistic talents were unrecognized (Reidel 2003).
Theories and Mysteries
Did Weldon Kees jump from the Golden Gate Bridge, or did he successfully disappear to start a new life? The evidence points in multiple directions. He had spoken to friends about both suicide and escape to Mexico. His careful preparations—taking his savings book and personal items—suggest premeditation, but for what? (The Doe Network 2022).
Some clues hint at a planned disappearance. Kees had been working on film projects and had connections in Mexico through his artistic circles. The missing savings account book suggests he might have withdrawn money for travel. Yet his deepening depression and artistic frustrations provide equally compelling reasons to believe he chose the more final solution that the Golden Gate Bridge has provided for so many others.
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| Golden Gate Bridge in Fog | By Unsplash | Pixabay.com | CC0 Public Domain |
An Enduring Mystery
Nearly seventy years later, Weldon Kees remains missing, and his case remains officially open (The Doe Network 2022). But perhaps, as Rooney suggests, there's an "aesthetic elegance" to his disappearance that makes definitive answers less important than the questions he left behind (Rooney 2013). His vanishing has become part of his artistic legacy, inspiring other poets and writers to fill in the blanks he left.
Kees once wrote in his poem "1926" about seeing into the future lives of his neighbors: "I see the lives / Of neighbors, mapped and marred / Like all the wars ahead." Perhaps he saw his own future too clearly and chose to write himself out of the story before it could end badly. Or maybe he simply walked into that famous San Francisco fog and kept walking, leaving behind only his art and an enduring mystery that continues to fascinate readers and writers today.
In either case, Weldon Kees achieved something rare: he became legendary not despite his disappearance, but because of it. His vanishing transformed him from a struggling artist into an eternal enigma, ensuring that his voice—that particular tone Donald Justice praised—would never be forgotten.
Join the Conversation
What do you think happened to Weldon Kees? Do you believe he jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge, or do you think he successfully disappeared to start a new life in Mexico or elsewhere?
Kees once asked film critic Pauline Kael, "What keeps you going?" in his final phone call. It's a question that seems to get to the heart of creative struggle and human resilience. What would your answer be to that same question?
Join us in our next post as we explore the mysterious disappearance of David Kenyon Webster...
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📚 For Further Reading
Academy of American Poets. "Weldon Kees." Poet.org. Accessed June 5, 2025. https://poets.org/poet/weldon-kees.
Lane, Anthony. "The Disappearing Poet." The New Yorker, June 26, 2005. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/07/04/the-disappearing-poet.
Reidel, James. Vanished Act: The Life and Art of Weldon Kees. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003.
Rooney, Kathleen. "Conjuring Act." Interview by James Reidel. Poetry Foundation, January 7, 2013. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69915/conjuring-act.
The Doe Network. "2338DMCA - Harry Weldon Kees." International Center For Unidentified & Missing Persons, May 18, 2022. https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/2338dmca.html.
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