Michael Scott Cooper

Michael Scott Cooper of Hughesville, PA, has been united with his Tao, becoming one with all created things, thus fulfilling the goal of his life.

Michael was the son of Samuel and Mildred Cooper of New York City. He attended the High School of Music and Art and New York University, from which he received the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Poetry Award. He went on to graduate from Hunter College (B.A., magna cum laude), and Union Theological Seminary (M. Div.). Michael was ordained a deacon and then a priest in the Episcopal Church, going on to serve in parishes in New York City; Wood-Ridge, NJ; Hackensack, NJ; Whitehall, PA; Drifton, PA; and St. James in Muncy, PA, where he directed the School of Contemplative Prayer, drawing upon the practice of the Medieval mystical writings. He was also a cellist, performing for twenty-four years with the Williamsport Symphony Orchestra, as well as Ensemble Santiago, a baroque ensemble, the Bloomsburg Community Orchestra and the Schuylkill Symphony Orchestra. Michael was a lifelong poet and writer, having been in his youth a frequent reader at the Poetry Project in the East Village as well as other venues. His career as a poet and writer blossomed at age seventy, when he was published by Spuyten Duyvil in Brooklyn, NY. Michael amassed sixteen manuscripts of poetry, and published his experimental novel, Reap Violet Hiss, his poetry book, Fresh Window, another novel Vague Semblances (the first in a quartet of experimental novels, continuing with his Spoon Dance, The Alabaster Albatross, and Hidden Doors) and his Collected Early Poems as well as several other books. He often read at the James Brown Library and the Otto Bookstore in Williamsport, PA.

Michael was the devoted father of his precious son, Jonathan, whom he raised and cared for throughout his lifetime. He was a committed philosophical Taoist who strove to live a pure and meaningful life.

Funeral services will be at 11 a.m. on February 20, 2026, at the McCarty-Thomas Funeral Home, 557 E. Water St., Hughesville, PA. Viewing will be from 10 to 11 a.m. prior to the funeral. Interment will follow in Pleasant Hill Cemetery, Hughesville.

Expressions of sympathy may be sent to the family at mccartythomas.com.