Richard Stanley Allen (August 8, 1939 – December 26, 2017) was an
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
poet, literary critic and academic.
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
Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...
(A.B. 1961), then at the
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
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
Wright State University is a public research university in Fairborn, Ohio. Originally opened in 1964 as a branch campus of Miami University and Ohio State University, it became an independent institution in 1967 and was named in honor of aviation ...
from 1964-8, then the
University of Bridgeport
The University of Bridgeport (UB) is a private university in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The university is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education. In 2021, the university was purchased by Goodwin University; it retain its own ...
. 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
A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch ...
. 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.
Allen was co-editor of several anthologies of science fiction and science fiction criticism,
[Dick Allen, Space Sonnets segment, Skeltonics for Poets and Others]
/ref> and his book, ''Overnight in the Guest House of the Mystic,'' was a finalist for the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. He was one of the founders of the Expansive Poetry movement. His influences included Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a cham ...
, A.E. Housman
Alfred Edward Housman (; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936) was an English classical scholar and poet. After an initially poor performance while at university, he took employment as a clerk in London and established his academic reputation by pub ...
, Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...
, Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in the United States. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American collo ...
His poems appeared in many journals, including ''Poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meani ...
'', ''The Atlantic Monthly
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'', ''The New Republic
''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hu ...
'', ''The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', ''The American Poetry Review
''The American Poetry Review'' (''APR'') is an American poetry magazine printed every other month on tabloid-sized newsprint. It was founded in 1972 by Stephen Berg and Stephen Parker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The magazine's editor is Elizabet ...
'', ''Ploughshares
''Ploughshares'' is an American literary journal established in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, ''Ploughshares'' has been based at Emerson College in Boston. ...
'', ''The Kenyon Review
''The Kenyon Review'' is a literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, US, home of Kenyon College. ''The Review'' was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, critic and professor of English at Kenyon College, who served as its editor until 1959. ' ...
'', ''The Hudson Review
''The Hudson Review'' is a quarterly journal of literature and the arts.
History
It was founded in 1947 in New York, by William Arrowsmith, Joseph Deericks Bennett, and George Frederick Morgan. The first issue was introduced in the spring of 194 ...
'', '' The Massachusetts Review'', ''The Yale Review
''The Yale Review'' is the oldest literary journal in the United States. It is published by Johns Hopkins University Press.
It was founded in 1819 as ''The Christian Spectator'' to support Evangelicalism. Over time it began to publish more on h ...
'', ''Boulevard'', ''The Gettysburg Review
''The Gettysburg Review'' is a quarterly literary magazine featuring short stories, poetry, essays and reviews. Work appearing in the magazine often is reprinted in "best-of" anthologies and receives awards.
The little magazine "is recognized ...
'', ''JuxtaProse Literary Magazine'', and ''The New Criterion
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
''.
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.Dick Allen wins 2013 New Criterion Poetry Prize by Brian P. Kelly - The New Criterion
/ref>
* Poems included in:
** ''The Best American Poetry'' volumes for 1991
File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phi ...
, 1994
File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nels ...
, 1998
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''.
Events January
* January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...
, 1999
File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...
and 2006
File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro votes to declare independence from Serbia; The 2006 ...
** ''Scanning the Century: The Penguin Book of the Twentieth Century in Poetry'' (1999
File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...
)
* Poetry writing fellowships:
** National Endowment for the Arts
** Ingram Merrill Foundation The Ingram Merrill Foundation was a private foundation established in the mid-1950s by poet James Merrill (1926-1995), using funds from his substantial family inheritance.J. D. McClatchyBraving the Elements ''The New Yorker'', 27 March 1995. Retrie ...
Bibliography
Poetry
;Collections
*
* ''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
File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...
)
* ''The Day Before: New Poems'' (Sarabande Books, 2003
File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A ...
)
* '' Present Vanishing'' (Sarabande Books, 2008)
* '' This Shadowy Place'' (St. Augustines Press, 2014)
* '' Zen Master Poems'' (Wisdom Publications, 2016)
;List of poems
See also
* Expansive Poetry Expansive Poetry is a movement in United States poetry that began in the 1980s. It is an umbrella term coined by Wade Newman for the movements of New Formalism and New Narrative, and the term is controversial even among many of the writers it purpo ...
Notes
External links
Dick Allen's Home Page
''Cortland Review''
Sources
Poems online
* ttp://www.poems.com/tenteall.htm "On Tenterhooks"
"The Weeks Before"
"As If I Wasn't There"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, Dick
1939 births
2017 deaths
The Atlantic (magazine) people
Poets Laureate of Connecticut
Poets from Connecticut
Poets from New York (state)
University of Bridgeport
Writers from Troy, New York