Hugh Ogden Poetry Prize
The Hugh Ogden Poetry Prize was created in the Fall of 2005 by his children and the College as a surprise for his upcoming 70th birthday and 40th year of teaching at Trinity. It will be given annually and the recipient will become the Hugh Ogden Poet for that year. Details about the prize will be unveiled at the celebration in honor of Hugh on June 9 2007 during reunion weekend.
Gifts to the prize in memory of Prof. Ogden Prize can be made by calling 1-800-771-6184 or visiting www.trincoll.edu/givingtotrinity/. Please be sure to specify that your gift is for the Ogden Prize. You may also mail a check to the Trinity College Advancement Office, Williams Memorial, 300 Summit Street, Hartford, CT 06106. For additional information regarding making a contribution, please e-mail amy.brough@trincoll.edu
Memorial Service
There will be a College Memorial Service for Professor Hugh Ogden, Professor of English at Trinity College, on Friday, February 9, at 4:00 p.m. in the College Chapel. All are welcome to attend and thus be a part of this tribute to a professor and colleague who has meant so much to all of us. The service given in his honor will truly reflect the vitality and spirit of Professor Ogden.
More details on the service will follow in the upcoming weeks.
Poetry Reading
Sponsored by The English Department and Poetry Center
Some of you may already have heard the very sad news that our beloved teacher and colleague Hugh Ogden passed away on Dec. 31, after his cross-country skis broke through the ice on Rangeley Lake in Maine.
Here at Trinity, we are still fairly stunned by this sudden loss, and many are groping for a way to begin a healing process that also acknowledges our deep debt to Hugh and his poetry. Hugh`s family has taken care of funeral arrangements, and there will surely be a campus-wide memorial. For the moment, however, it seems that one small step we can take is to share poetry, as Hugh might have wanted.
To that end, we will gather in the Gallows Hill space at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, January 24, to read aloud some of Hugh`s poems as well as poems he loved and poems inspired by his teaching. This is an open-ended response and will not have a formal agenda. There will be books of Hugh`s poetry on hand and a sign-in sheet for those who would like to read. Please bring any poems of your own that were inspired by Hugh or any poems that you know inspired him. If you have any questions about the event, please feel free to contact Lucy Ferriss by email or at ext. 2466. Together, we begin the long, slow process of healing from this tragic loss.
January 3, 2007, Hartford, Conn.—Hugh Ogden, 69, professor of English at Trinity College and renowned poet, died on December 31, 2006, after falling through ice on a cross-country trek across Rangeley Lake in Maine. Memorial service details are listed below.
Ogden received an A.B. from Haverford College, an M.A. from New York University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He joined the Trinity College faculty in 1967. He was the co-founder of the Creative Writing Program at Trinity and founder of the Creative Writing Program at the Academy for the Arts magnet school in Hartford, where he taught poetry workshops. Before coming to Trinity he taught Greek and Latin literature in the Honors Program at the University of Michigan for seven years.
Ogden published seven books, most recently Turtle Island Tree Psalms (2006), and approximately 500 poems in over 300 periodicals. Garrison Keillor read his poem "Circumference And Centers" on the “Writer's Almanac” in March of 2006 and Bringing A Fir Straight Down (2005) was nominated for the Kingsley Tuffs Prize. He was selected as a fellow at The MacDowell Colony twice and won residencies at Hawthornden Castle in Scotland; Le Chateau de Lavigny in Switzerland; the Albee Foundation, U-cross, twice; the Djerassi Resident Artists Program; and The Frank Waters Foundation, twice. He received a National Endowment for the Arts grant and three from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, and was twice nominated for The Pushcart Prize – Best of the Small Presses.
Ogden acted on the stage, ran a read-aloud program on Connecticut Public Radio, was “poet-in-the-school” for over 30 Connecticut and Massachusetts grade and high schools, and worked with kindergarten children, the elderly, and prison inmates.
Friends may call Friday, January 5, from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the Mulryan Funeral Home, 725 Hebron Avenue, Glastonbury. A memorial meeting for worship will be held Saturday, January 6, at 2:00 p.m. at the Hartford Monthly Meeting, 144 South Quaker Lane, West Hartford. In addition, a memorial service will be held at the Rangeley Congregational Church, Pleasant Street, Rangeley, ME on Saturday, January 13, at 11:00 a.m.
A celebration of his life, scheduled for June 9 during Reunion Weekend, will take place at Trinity College. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Rangeley Lakes Heritage Trust, P.O. Box 249, Oquossoc, ME 04964 – http://www.rlht.org/, or to the Hugh Ogden Poetry Prize, care of the Trinity College Advancement Office, Williams Memorial, Trinity College, Hartford, CT 06106.