Ned O'Gorman

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Ned O'Gorman (born September 26, 1929) is an American poet and educator.

[edit] Biographical notes

Born Edward Charles O'Gorman to Annette de Bouthillier-Chavigny and Samuel Franklin Engs O'Gorman in New York City, Ned O'Gorman spent most of his early life in Southport, Connecticut, and Bradford, Vermont. In 1950, he graduated from St. Michael's College in Vermont and later received an M.A. from Columbia University. While at Princeton University in 1957, O'Gorman rented a room in the house of Caroline Gordon Tate. His poetry earned him Guggenheim Fellowships in 1956 and 1962. He won the Lamont Poetry Award in 1958 for his collection of poems, The Night of the Hammer.

O'Gorman was the literary editor of the Catholic magazine Jubilee from 1962 to 1965. He was appointed by the U.S. State Department to be the American studies specialist in Chile, Argentina and Brazil in 1965. He is the recipient of the Rothko Chapel Award for Commitment to Truth and Freedom.

He arrived in Harlem in July 1966 and worked as a volunteer teacher in a Head Start summer program. The children's library he started two months later, named after Addie Mae Collins, one of the four children killed in the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham church, gradually became a tuition-free school known as the Children's Storefront, welcoming all children living in the area. Today, the school thrives with an annual budget of $2.5 million and a waiting list of 800 children.

After losing a dispute over succession, Ned O’Gorman founded the Ricardo O'Gorman Garden and Center for Resources in the Humanities which opened in 1998 with the collaboration of two teachers from the original school. The Center, which O'Gorman continues to direct, is located on West 129th Street in New York City. The tuition-free school has an annual budget of $300,000 and is supported by Mr. O'Gorman's fund-raising efforts.

O'Gorman has also taught at Brooklyn College, the New School and Manhattan College. He is the author of six books of poetry, five books of prose, and numerous articles and poetry published in various magazines.

Among the numerous correspondents of the poet, some are among the most renowned personalities of the twentieth century: Peter Levi, Henry Miller, Huston Smith, Susan Sontag, Mark Van Doren, Daniel Berrigan, Louise Bogan, Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Eberhart, Paul Goodman, Galway Kinnell, Denise Levertov, Archibald MacLeish, Marianne Moore, Anaïs Nin, Richard Wilbur, Robert Bly, Rafael Squirru, Laura Riding Jackson, Lincoln Kirstein, Kathleen Raine, Robert Penn Warren and Thomas Merton.

[edit] Books

Poetry

  • The Night of the Hammer (1958)
  • Adam Before the Mirror (1961)
  • The Harvesters' Vase (1968)
  • The Flag the Hawk Flies (1972)
  • Five Seasons of Obsession: New and Selected Poems (2001)

Non-Fiction

  • Children Are Dying (1978)
  • The Storefront: A Community of Children on 129th Street and Madison Avenue (1970)
  • The Wilderness and the Laurel Tree: A Guide for Teachers and Parents on the Observation of Children (1972)
  • Prophetic Voices: Ideas and Words on Revolution (1969)
  • The other side of loneliness (2006)

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME O'Gorman, Ned
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION American poet and educator
DATE OF BIRTH September 26, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH