Born: September 10, 1840 Died: December 13, 1937 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Leonard Gurley Foster, a Civil War veteran whose avocation brought him the epithet, “the Buckeye poet” was the son of Ebenezer and Elmyra (Williams) Foster. He was born on the family homestead in the Cuyahoga Valley near Denison Avenue in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Cleveland. He …
Read More Foster, Leonard GurleyBorn: June 27, 1872Died: February 9, 1906 Ohio connection: Birth Dayton Writer, poet, and lyricist, Paul Laurence Dunbar was born in Dayton, Ohio, on June 27, 1872. Dunbar, the son of Matilda Murphy Dunbar and Joshua Dunbar (who served in the 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment), two formerly enslaved people, wrote his first poem at the age of six. …
Read More Paul Laurence DunbarBorn: July 21, 1899Died: April 27, 1932 Ohio connection: Birth Garrettsville Harold Hart Crane, regarded as one of the greatest American poets of the 20th century, was born in Garrettsville, Ohio, on July 21, 1899. His father, a successful candy and syrup manufacturer, later moved the family to Warren before sending his son to live with his maternal …
Read More Hart CraneBorn: September 4, 1824Died: July 31, 1871 Ohio connection: Birth Mount Healthy Phoebe Cary was born in 1824 in Mount Healthy, Ohio, one of eleven children of Robert and Elizabeth Jessup Cary. She grew up on a farm and had little formal education. Under the tutelage of her older sister Alice, she developed a great love for literature …
Read More Phoebe CaryBorn: November 21, 1925Died: December 4, 2010 Ohio connection: Former Resident Columbus Robert Wilburn Canzoneri was born in San Marcos, Texas, the son of Joe and Mabel (Barnett) Canzoneri. He received a B.A. degree from Mississippi College in 1948, an M.A. from the University of Mississippi in 1951, and a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1965. He married Candyce Barnes. …
Read More Robert Wilburn CanzoneriOberlin Born: 1949 Ohio connection: Birth Bruce Weigl was born in Lorain, Ohio, son of Albert Louis (a foundry worker) and Zora (Grasa) (a packing plant worker. Weigl has published numerous books of poetry, including Like a Sack Full of Old Quarrels (1976), What Saves Us (1992), and Sweet Lorain (1996). In 2000, he published The Circle of Hanh, a memoir that chronicles …
Read More Weigl, BruceCleveland Born: 1954 Ohio connection: Birth The eldest daughter of four children, Mary Elise Weems was born in Cleveland where her mother, Elaine B. Lacy, a lifelong resident, raised her. Weems started writing poems at the age of thirteen and found her vocation. Her creative spirit-eye has turned more and more outward to include her take …
Read More Weems, Mary E.Massillon Born: 1926 Ohio connection: Birth A native of Massillon, David Russell Wagoner was born in 1926. At the age of seven, his family relocated to Whiting, a city outside Gary, Indiana. Enlisting at age eighteen in the United States Navy, he served from 1944 to 1946. Educated at Pennsylvania State University, he received his B.A. …
Read More Wagoner, David RussellBorn: November 27, 1874 Died: December 25, 1950 Ohio connection: Birth Xenia Frederic Ridgely Torrence, son of Findley David and Mary (Ridgely) Torrence, was born in 1874 in Xenia, Ohio. He attended Miami University of Ohio, 1893-95, and Princeton University, 1895-96. He worked as a librarian at the Astor Library and the Lenox Library, both …
Read More Frederic Ridgely TorrenceBorn: April 21, 1935Died: May 6, 2004 Ohio connection: Resident Cleveland Daniel Thompson was a poet and activist who, in 1992, became the first Poet Laureate of Cuyahoga County, Ohio. A lifelong champion of civic and literary engagement, Thompson was born April 21, 1935, in Washington, D.C., but the Thompson family moved to Cleveland shortly …
Read More Daniel Thompson