Ed Ochester

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Ed Ochester (b. 1939 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American poet and editor.

Ochester's books of poetry include: Dancing on the Edges of Knives, winner of the Devins Award for Poetry, Miracle Mile, and Changing the Name to Ochester.

Since 1979 he has served as general editor of the Pitt Poetry Series, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. It is one of the largest and best known lists of contemporary American poetry by any publisher. He is also general editor of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize.

Poets published by Ochester in the Pitt Series include Sharon Olds, Billy Collins, Ted Kooser, Lawrence Joseph, Richard Shelton, Larry Levis, Jim Daniels, Gary Soto, Stuart Dybek, Kathleen Norris, Alicia Ostriker, Toi Derricotte, and David Wojahn.

For nearly twenty years Ochester also served as director of the writing program at the University of Pittsburgh, and he was twice elected president of the Associated Writing Programs. From 1967 to 1970 he was assistant professor of English at University of Florida, Gainesville.

Ochester was educated at Cornell University, Harvard University, and the University of Wisconsin.

He is a founding editor of the poetry magazine 5 AM.

Since 1972 Ochester has lived on a small farm in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania.

[edit] Works

• We Like It Here, poetry (Madison: Quixote Press, 1967)
• The Great Bourgeois Bus Company, poetry (Madison: Quixote Press, 1969)
• The Third Express, poetry (Madison: Quixote Press, 1973)
• Natives: An Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, (editor), a poetry anthology (Madison: Quixote Press, 1973)
• Dancing on the Edges of Knives, poetry (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1973)
• The End of the Ice Age, poetry (Pittsburgh: Slow Loris Press, 1977)
• A Drift of Swine, poetry (Birmingham: Thunder City Press, 1979)
• Miracle Mile, poetry (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1984)
• Weehawken Ferry, poetry (Bangor: Juniper Press, 1985)
• Changing the Name to Ochester, poetry (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1988)
• The Pittsburgh Book of Contemporary American Poetry, (co-editor), a poetry anthology, (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993)
• Allegheny, poetry (Easthampton: Adastra Press, 1995)
• Cooking in Key West, poetry (Easthampton: Adastra Press, 2000)
• Snow White Horses: Selected Poems 1973-1988, poetry (Pittsburgh: Autumn House Press, 2000)
• The Land of Cockaigne, poetry (Ashland: Story Line Press, 2001)

[edit] External link

• The Pitt Poetry Series Homepage

[edit] References

• Ochester, Ed and Peter Oresick (1993). The Pittsburgh Book of Contemporary American Poetry. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 0-8229-5506-7.