Richard S. Allen ’63 AM

Richard S. Allen ’63 AM, of Trumbull, Conn.; Dec. 16, 2017. He was a professor of English and director of creative writing at the Univ. of Bridgeport from 1968 to 2001. He was an acclaimed public speaker and poetry reader. He led poetry workshops and seminars and served as a judge for various competitions and selection committees in Connecticut. In 2010 he was named Connecticut’s poet laureate. He published in premier journals, including Poetry, the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Hudson Review, and New Criterion, as well as in scores of national anthologies. He won numerous awards, including a Pushcart Prize, the Robert Frost prize, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Ingram Merrill Poetry Foundation. His collection, Present Vanishing: Poems, received the 2009 Connecticut Book Award for Poetry. He was a member of the Academy of American Poets and the Modern Language Assoc. He is survived by his wife, Lori; a daughter; and son.