Dick Allen (poet)
Richard Stanley Allen (August 8, 1939 – December 26, 2017) was an American poet, literary critic and academic.
Dick Allen | |
|---|---|
| Born | Richard Stanley Allen August 8, 1939 Troy, New York |
| Died | December 26, 2017 (aged 78) Bridgeport, Connecticut |
| Occupation | Poet, literary critic |
| Nationality | American |
| Literary movement | Expansive Poetry Zen Poetry |
| Notable awards | Robert Frost Prize |
Early life
The son of Richard Sanders Allen, a writer and historian, and Doris (née Bishop), a postmaster, Allen was educated at the College of Liberal Arts at Syracuse University (A.B. 1961), then at the Brown University graduate school (M.A. 1964), and subsequently undertook two years of post-Masters work.
Career
Having been a teaching assistant at Brown whilst studying, he went on to teach creative writing and English literature at Wright State University from 1964-8, then the University of Bridgeport.[1] When he retired, he was the Charles A. Dana Endowed Chair Professor at the University of Bridgeport.
From July 1, 2010, through June 30, 2015, he served as Connecticut's poet laureate. During this time he wrote the poem "Solace" in remembrance of the victims of the shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, CT. This poem was subsequently set to music by the composer William Bolcom.[2]
Allen was co-editor of several anthologies of science fiction and science fiction criticism,[3] and his book, Overnight in the Guest House of the Mystic, was a finalist for the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.[4] He was one of the founders of the Expansive Poetry movement. His influences included Ralph Waldo Emerson, A.E. Housman, Ben Jonson, Robert Frost[5]
His poems appeared in many journals, including Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, The Hudson Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Yale Review, Boulevard, The Gettysburg Review, JuxtaProse Literary Magazine, and The New Criterion.[3] Allen died on December 26, 2017 after a heart attack.[6]
Awards and recognition
- Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, Overnight in the Guest House of the Mystic, 1984
- Robert Frost Prize
- Hart Crane Poetry Prize
- Pushcart Prize
- New Criterion Poetry Prize, This Shadowy Place, 2013.[7]
- Poems included in:
- Poetry writing fellowships:
- National Endowment for the Arts
- Ingram Merrill Foundation
Bibliography
Poetry
- Collections
- Allen, Dick (1971). Anon, and various time machine poems. New York: Delacorte Press.
- Regions With No Proper Names (St. Martin's Press, 1975)
- Overnight in the Guest House of the Mystic (Louisiana State University Press, 1984)
- Flight and Pursuit (Louisiana State University Press, 1987)
- Ode to the Cold War: Poems New and Selected (Sarabande, 1997)
- The Day Before: New Poems (Sarabande Books, 2003)
- Present Vanishing (Sarabande Books, 2008)
- This Shadowy Place (St. Augustines Press, 2014)
- Zen Master Poems (Wisdom Publications, 2016)
- List of poems
| Title | Year | First published | Reprinted/collected |
|---|---|---|---|
| Memo from the desk of Wallace Stevens: | 1996 | Allen, Dick (August 1996). "Memo from the desk of Wallace Stevens:". The Atlantic Monthly. 278 (2): 64. | |
See also
Notes
- Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, vol. 2, R. Reginald, 1979, pg 794
- http://www.wnpr.org/post/simple-solemn-tribute-sandy-hook-victims
- Dick Allen, Space Sonnets segment, Skeltonics for Poets and Others
- "All Past National Book Critics Circle Award Winners and Finalists". National Book Critics Circle. Archived from the original on 27 April 2019. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
- "Dick Allen". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
- Hartford Courant obituary Dick Allen poet
- Dick Allen wins 2013 New Criterion Poetry Prize by Brian P. Kelly - The New Criterion
