January 2018
Tributes to Dick Allen
Arthur Mortensen
I first met Dick Allen more than twenty years ago. We found ourselves reading together at an Irish Bar in the Bronx. He was the name reader. I was up after the break. We hit it off, and began to send each other poems and short notes. When I had a collection ready I sent it to him, as he had requested. I didn’t know what to expect. His schedule of readings, teaching, and his own writing seemed to preclude much in the way of commentary. Six weeks later the manuscript came back, heavily annotated, with a long letter that included a recommendation to be repeated on the back of the book, should it be released. I looked at his notes with some trepidation, but needn’t have. They were smart, the work of a great editor and poet both sensitive and sensible. Changes he thought might work were usually small, a word, the placement of a word. Serious comments he put on the side in a few places where something incoherent had gotten loose in a poem, or logic was broken or carelessly reversed. I was startled and pleased. I followed many of his suggestions and was happy to have the blurb as well. I gather that was typical of Dick Allen in correspondence with poets. Over the years, we read together again on occasion. My wife and I visited he and Lori in their remarkable home/library on the Thrushwood Lake. I followed his publication with avid interest and was delighted when he was named Poet Laureate of Connecticut. It hardly seemed possible at his death that twenty years had passed since we first met.
Bob Knox
I emailed Dick as if he were just another poet. If I known more about him, I don't know if I would have dared. But he always responded just like anyone else. Part of what made him what he was.
Pat O'Brien
In the '80s at U.B. I was lucky enough to study poetry with Dick Allen. I came to his classes with a Masters of Science. and a dirth of knowledge in liberal arts. His curriculum, his humor, his insights and his curriclum were revelations to me! I also braved Individual Studies with him .... and learned the pitfalls inherent in puppies and blind pencil venders ... attempts at irony notwithstanding. Dick wrote the blurb for my first poetry book, "When Less,Than Perfect is Enough." Leave it to him to write that a poem or two had him dancing the jig! Dick Allen, I love you ... then and now and forever.
Cortney Davis
I met Dick Allen in 1983 when he selected one of my poems for an award in a local Trumbull, CT Arts Festival. We spoke briefly after the ceremony, and he invited me to send some of my poems his way. I didn't, and about a year later, at a mutual friend's reading, he sought me out. Where are those poems you were going to send me? he asked, and so I finally mailed a few his way. He responded to my poems immediately (as he did with all his correspondents) with wonderful thoughts and suggestions. He invited me to study with him in a private tutorial, and I did that for two semesters when he was a professor at the University of Bridgeport (one of many of his individual students). As a mentor, he was then, and continued to be, intensely intuitive, interested, perceptive, and generous. I am only one of many, many poets whose work was enhanced by Dick's attention, by his willingness to teach us not how to write as he wrote, but how to write in our own best voices. He was a rarity---a poetry mentor who wanted his students to be as good as he was, or better than he was, at putting words on a page. Very simply, he loved poetry, and devoted his life to it, to his own poems and to the poems of others. Midway in our tutorial, Dick invited me home to meet his wife, Lori Negridge Allen, a poet and writer, and a woman who immediately became my friend. I've been honored to know Dick and Lori for 34 years. In-between frequent visits, we corresponded regularly, first in letters and then in email. I've spent countless hours with Dick and Lori, and I've benefited immensely from his mentoring, his generosity in promoting my work (and the work of so many others), the example of his poetry, and the warmth with which he and Lori made me a part of their family. We have shared many sorrows and many joys. Dick's death is one of the sorrows that Lori and I, and so many others, share. But Dick has gifted us with much joy as well, in our memories of him, and in the poems and essays he has left with us for safe keeping.
Marilyn Johnston
Dick Allen inspired me with his books, his readings, and with his presence on the poetry scene. I recall his warm handshake, the way he had of receiving a person and resuming a conversation as if it were always ongoing in the universe. I recall his unfailing kindness. The nod and conspiratorial wink. What were we co-conspirators of? Poetry? Belief in humanity? Buddha's wisdom? Perhaps all of these. His perseverance in the art of writing poetry kept so many of us going. I was privileged to read with him on the bill once at Victoria Munoz's venue in Waterbury Library. One of my private milestones as a poet. I invited him to feature at my Wintonbury Poetry Series, twice, in Bloomfield. He blurbed my second book from Antrim House. I spent a week writing an introduction speech for him that I delivered at one of Lonnie Black's poetry nights at the West Hartford Art League. He announced to the audience that night that Lonnie's intro and mine were the best he'd ever received. Another private milestone! He was able to validate a person in a way that meant something because his own excellence and devotion in being a poet were so monumental. Out of the blue he chose my poem in a contest run by Newtown magazine several years ago. At the tribute reading to Leo Connellan months later, I was able to thank him. Recently, I was enjoying his new book, Zen Master. I told him how much I loved the book just this past November as we both stood in the book signing line for Paul Mariani at the Wallace Stevens Birthday Bash. Dick modeled what it was to learn from others, thank others and support others. In Zen Master I learned that when he was an undergraduate, he had met Alan Watts, an idol for both of us. I emailed Dick with a request to describe that meeting with Watts for me. He did so at length, saying that Watts had the most intense eyes he had ever seen. He felt Watts' spirit. Dick Allen remains that for me, an unforgettable spirit I can still access in his books, a rare light, a memorable, supportive friend on the path.
Sydney Lea
Sad as I am to note Dick Allen’s passing, I am pleased that, on reading (or re-reading) “Mr. Gorsline’s Town” in the last issue, I wrote to him both to applaud and to reminisce. I recalled that, when I first started thinking of myself as a poet-in-the-making, Dick’s Regions With No Proper Names (St. Martin’s, 1975) was among the first contemporary volumes that spoke to me. I’m not sure I ever shared this intelligence with him; I think or at least hope so. Over the years, I saw the poet less often than I wish I had, but we remained in touch after I first published him in New England Review, and word from him was not only always a pleasure but always in one measure or another an enlightenment. The Buddhism of Dick’s later life is continuous with something at the heart of his work ab origine. One sees it already in “Mr. Gorsline’s Town”: the notion that the most important realities lie behind the scrim of preoccupations, anxieties, and aspirations that we all experience. I will hold Dick– and on my better days, his example– close to my heart for as long as I tread the earth. R.I.P., good man.
Marilyn Taylor
I first met Dick Allen on line in the early 2000’s, as a result of his sending me a very nice note about one of my poems that he’d seen published somewhere. I responded to thank him, he responded to my thank-you, and the rest is history. We carried on a correspondence from that time forward, which included poems (of course), poetry news, observations on life (often involving Zen), terribly lame jokes, politics, even forwarded videos of cute kittens. I read with him twice in Connecticut, and also visited him and Lori on several occasions at their home in Trumbull, which, of course, overflows with poetry and conviviality. My heart aches, and my deepest condolences go out to Lori, Tanya, Rich, and everyone else who loved him.
John Stanizzi
Since I was a kid -- Dick is 11 years older than I -- Dick's name was the name in poetry in Connecticut. Every young, aspiring poet around these parts was well aware of the presence of this great artist, and if he were reading somewhere, we (my gang of juvenile poets and me), would find a way to be there. As the years passed, and we both grew older, we simply became friends, naturally and unnoticibly; we'd see each other at readings -- the Sunken Garden, Wintonbury,the Wadsworth Atheneum, the West Side Poetry Series, and so many other venues here in Connecticut. And every once in a while, we'd be published in the same journal (a profound honor for me, to be sure!). We had become aware of one another, and then we became friends. I once did a lecture on Dick's life and poetry at the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, CT. He was the featured reader that night, and I was chosen to present this prelude. Later in the evening, as folks were heading down into the spectacular "Sunken Garden" to hear Dick read, he took me aside to say, "I heard your talk went very well. Thank you so much." There was tremendous catharsis in this simple comment. More recently, I had published a piece in V-V and Dick wrote me with a comment about this really long poem, "John, I think the real poem, the whole poem, is right here," -- and he pointed out three lines! And he was right. In among all the noise of this four page "rambler," Dick showed where the poem actually resided, gently and kindly. That's how he was -- brilliant, gifted, and gentle. It is difficult to imagine the world without our dear Dick Allen. Rest peacefully, dear friend.
Judy Kronenfeld
Dick Allen – A Small Remembrance
I didn’t know Dick Allen personally at all. But I have treasured poems like “Then” and “Still Waters” for a long time. And I admire the way—as I said in a note to Dick about “The Beginner” in an issue of V-V—his poetry is steeped in and has totally absorbed literary tradition, but wears it lightly, and for his own purposes. I loved his response to my note. Dick took time to second my sense of the form of his poem (a kind of truncated sestina) and elaborate on how that came about. He revealed in a personal and natural way how “scary” it was to have meditation begin to really work. And he kindly praised the “extremely tactile sense-abounding element” of my own poems and quoted one of them. Focused astute attention, humanity, graciousness—there it was. When the “white horse” comes “galloping toward us,” there is “No road / of words we might take,” Dick writes in “Then.” But he has left us a road of amazing words to take over and over again.
Tricia Knoll
Over the last year as my interest in Zen continued to grow, I enjoyed a series of email correspondences with Dick Allen. After reading his Zen Master Poems, I wrote one inspired by one of his poems. He added one word to the last line and that made the poem. I'm grateful for the brief correspondence we shared and his Zen Master website which I flagged to read every Monday.
Barbara Crooker
I first met Dick at the West Chester Poetry Conference some years ago, where I was awed by his brilliance. He was unfailing in his kindness to me, sending notes when I had a poem appear on The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Dail, etc. Later, he asked if he could be my mentor, something that those of us outside the loop of MFA programs never get to have. He helped me with the ordering of my third book, More, and wrote me a blurb, which began:“To say it flat out: From her hiding place in Fogelsville, Pennsylvania, Barbara Crooker has been writing—one by one—some of the finest poems in America. More contains many of these poems.”
I’m blushing right now, as I type this. We continued our friendship over the years, and I continued in my admiration for his work. Our last exchange of emails was on the morning of his death; there were no hints of what was coming, just the flow of words between friends. And now words fail me, other than to say I’ll miss his friendship, and I’ll miss his poems. RIP, dear friend.
Joan Leotta
Dick Allen's poem, shared on FB by John Stanizzi, "If you get there before I do", is a wonderful expression of the hope those of us left behind can have when a loved one goes on ahead of us. As one who mostly knew his work thru VV, his voice enriched my world and I am glad he left us writings to continue his impact on our hearts
Alan Walowitz
Since I’d known the name Dick Allen pretty much ever since I started reading poetry, I found it hard, once I’d joined Verse-Virtual, to write him an email telling him how much I admired his work. Who was I to tell Dick Allen I liked his poetry? Finally did so in January of 2017 when he published Don’t Tell Me There’s No Hope. The poem spoke to me and gave me something to aspire to. Dick wrote back to say thanks and to tell me he liked my poems in January’s issue--and he told me exactly what he liked. I’ve hung onto that email with gladness and pride--and now sadness that it took me so long to get that conversation started.
Sarah White
Where else but in Verse-Virtual could I have known the pleasure of writing Dick Allen, a distinguished poet I’d never met, to thank him with all my heart for expressing his hatred of African Violets (V-V, May, 2016)?
I’ve always
despised their creepy caterpillar-furry hairy leaves,
their flimsy little stalks
like over-cooked strands of angel-hair spaghetti.
How else but through V-V could I have received his gracious response, unequivocally confirming his own dislike and supporting mine plus a few other random phobias I admitted to (e.g. Chihuahua dogs). Poets, especially Buddhist poets, are supposed to LOVE all flowers, plants, and creatures, leaving the rest of us abashed by our own stinginess of heart. This man was generous to a heart in one of its less-than-loving moments. I am grateful that he left a world of beautiful, funny poems that will ease my abashment for years to come.
Robert Wexelblatt
After admiring Dick Allen’s contributions to Verse-Virtual month after month, I wrote to thank him for his wonderful curse poem. He wrote back thoughtfully and instructively which, I gather, was typical of his exchanges with other writers. He also took the trouble to comment graciously and encouragingly on my own modest contribution of that month. I can see from the many tributes that Dick Allen was a generous master who fulfilled Auden’s injunction that one should never say anything to a young writer that might cause him or her to cease writing. I was particularly grateful for the glimpse he gave me into his workshop: “Thank you especially for noting the poem’s sounds, for they drove the poem into its end and, frankly, I pulled back and listened (this is a Romantic view of the Muse dictating, but often it’s how I seem to hear poems). “Crepuscular” was a total revelation and a word I’d never anticipated. It actually sounds much worse than it is, I found from its definition.” The loss of Dick Allen doesn’t have a remedy.
David Graham
Sad to say, I never met Dick Allen face to face. Nor can I now remember when his wonderfully varied and surprising poetry appeared on my horizon, but it was many years before I became a sporadic but grateful email correspondent of his. I know I read and admired his new & selected poems, Ode to the Cold War, which came out in 1997. But I’d been enjoying his work in journals for years before that, and I have a feeling that it was my old professor and mentor Sydney Lea who probably urged me to read Dick Allen in the first place. In any event, I’ve always had a great fondness for poets who steer clear of mere poetic fashion, and who thus elude most critical labels. From start to finish, Dick Allen’s poetry was dedicated to seeking the truth in its many guises, and this no doubt informed the great variety of styles, tones, and forms in which he wrote. I also can’t recall exactly when we became email pen-pals, but I do know it was Marilyn Taylor who suggested that I write to him. He wrote back, of course, promptly and beautifully, and I cherished our (very haphazard on my end) correspondence from then on. I was naturally flattered by the intelligent praise he sometimes offered for my own work. And in fact it was only after news of his sudden death began circulating that I fully realized how many poets he befriended in this way. My already great estimation of his character rose in proportion as my pride in his praise was put into more reasonable perspective. I now see that in addition to his great poetic gift he truly had the knack of a fine teacher and good friend: making many others feel a keen sense of their own worth.
David K. Leff
Dick Allen was a master of the sweet juxtaposition. He had a way of weaving popular culture with deep learning to create something wholly new and different. Dick had wisdom informed by an abiding Buddhism and a realistic political outlook on the world. He had a playful way with words, even when deadly serious. His love of language was contagious.
Dick was a natural teacher and you didn’t have to sit in his classroom to feel the warmth of his knowledge and advice. I was never a student of his, but I learned as much about poetry from him as from anyone. A colleague of my mother at the University of Bridgeport, Dick gave me my first book of adult poetry in 1971 when I was sixteen. It was his first book, Anon and Various Time Machine Poems. I cherish that volume, which still shares an honored place on my bookshelf. Anon led me down the rabbit hole of poetry for which I could never express enough gratitude. Dick and I went for about a decade without seeing each other, but renewed our friendship when he read at the Sunken Garden in 1997. I had him sign my copy of the book he had given me so many years ago, and he dedicated it to “all those old Anon times.”
Since our acquaintance was rekindled, I’d see Dick a few times each year. We had what he would call “wild rapport,” engaging in poetry talk and about our joys and concerns with the contemporary social landscape. I was honored by his cover reviews of two of my own volumes of poetry. Dick could turn the most ordinary moment into a magical experience. I will miss him, but continue to read his work and find him with me.
Leslie McGrath
I was fortunate to have been introduced to Dick in 2002 by the poets Jeffrey Skinner and Sarah Gorham, who were spending a long residency at the James Merrill House in Stonington. Dick had been Jeff's mentor at the University of Bridgeport; Sarah and Jeff were Dick's poetry publishers through Sarabande Books, their small literary press in Louisville. I was 45, considering an MFA, and looking to be talked out of it. Instead, Dick took an interest in my early poems and was a steadfast encourager. He took me seriously and showered me with book suggestions. He and Lori were a beautiful duprass. I can see them sitting close-eyed and enraptured at poetry readings around CT. Years ago the three of us took an overnight road trip to PA for a reading. I remember little about the event, but the stories they told of their annual driving trips around the country continue to furnish my dreams, as do many of his poems.
Neil Creighton
One of the great things about Verse-Virtual is how it functions as a village. This village was my introduction to Dick Allen and on many occasions I wrote to him a brief note of appreciation for his beautiful poems. I think the graciousness and generosity of his response says so much about him and I quote from several of his emails by way of demonstration. In response to my comments on “Hornets’ Nests” he wrote:
Thank you, Neil, for that splendid appreciation of my poem,”Hornets’ Nests.” I most particularly have gratitude for how you’ve pointed out the ambiguity of having to kill in order to stop being attacked. Even before the use of drones in the Middle East, I think the poem was thinking about drones.
I also wrote to him about “The Accompanist”. This is what he wrote back. I think it says a great deal about him.
Thank you, Neil! I’d not thought of that connection with J. Alfred Prufrock (I’d taught that poem for years and years), but you’re right, not Prufrock’s self-pity and lament, but a praise to those who aid and enable without feeling envy, those who take charge of their “part.” Like all of us have to do—and I’m thinking of even important politicians who have to raise their hands like everyone else during meetings. And although I really like giving poetry readings, I’m very happy to introduce the guest poet and then sit back and listen while she or he reads and gains applause. Thank you especially for seeing the wider application of “The Accompanist.”
Finally, Dick was generous and encouraging and sent warm notes of appreciation for my own poems, thanking me for “the intensity and love of your poems”. Part of his note on my poem, “Temple”, is worthy of inclusion for what it says about him. He wrote:
Thank you, Neil, and for your “Temple,” with its perfected form and its “stained-glass blaze of light,” the poem’s hewn imagery. My wife and I have long been obsessed with warning about the environment and what we’re doing to it. In fact much of a college textbook/anothology we did for Harcourt Brace Jovanovic (Looking Ahead: The Vision of Science Fiction, 1975) was aimed at increasing awareness even back then, when we could have done so much more to forestall what’s happening now.
I’m so grateful to have this opportunity to reach across the mighty Pacific Ocean and the North American continent and have this brief contact with this warm, generous and modest man.
Vale, Dick Allen.
Pit Pinegar
To share a room with Dick Allen was to be in the presence of kindness and gentle grace...he might be teaching, reading, he might be colleague or member of an audience. His intelligence and spirit and attention sparked and sparkled, but it was the gentle grace that I will remember most...and Lori at his side always.
I first met Dick Allen more than twenty years ago. We found ourselves reading together at an Irish Bar in the Bronx. He was the name reader. I was up after the break. We hit it off, and began to send each other poems and short notes. When I had a collection ready I sent it to him, as he had requested. I didn’t know what to expect. His schedule of readings, teaching, and his own writing seemed to preclude much in the way of commentary. Six weeks later the manuscript came back, heavily annotated, with a long letter that included a recommendation to be repeated on the back of the book, should it be released. I looked at his notes with some trepidation, but needn’t have. They were smart, the work of a great editor and poet both sensitive and sensible. Changes he thought might work were usually small, a word, the placement of a word. Serious comments he put on the side in a few places where something incoherent had gotten loose in a poem, or logic was broken or carelessly reversed. I was startled and pleased. I followed many of his suggestions and was happy to have the blurb as well. I gather that was typical of Dick Allen in correspondence with poets. Over the years, we read together again on occasion. My wife and I visited he and Lori in their remarkable home/library on the Thrushwood Lake. I followed his publication with avid interest and was delighted when he was named Poet Laureate of Connecticut. It hardly seemed possible at his death that twenty years had passed since we first met.
Bob Knox
I emailed Dick as if he were just another poet. If I known more about him, I don't know if I would have dared. But he always responded just like anyone else. Part of what made him what he was.
Pat O'Brien
In the '80s at U.B. I was lucky enough to study poetry with Dick Allen. I came to his classes with a Masters of Science. and a dirth of knowledge in liberal arts. His curriculum, his humor, his insights and his curriclum were revelations to me! I also braved Individual Studies with him .... and learned the pitfalls inherent in puppies and blind pencil venders ... attempts at irony notwithstanding. Dick wrote the blurb for my first poetry book, "When Less,Than Perfect is Enough." Leave it to him to write that a poem or two had him dancing the jig! Dick Allen, I love you ... then and now and forever.
Cortney Davis
I met Dick Allen in 1983 when he selected one of my poems for an award in a local Trumbull, CT Arts Festival. We spoke briefly after the ceremony, and he invited me to send some of my poems his way. I didn't, and about a year later, at a mutual friend's reading, he sought me out. Where are those poems you were going to send me? he asked, and so I finally mailed a few his way. He responded to my poems immediately (as he did with all his correspondents) with wonderful thoughts and suggestions. He invited me to study with him in a private tutorial, and I did that for two semesters when he was a professor at the University of Bridgeport (one of many of his individual students). As a mentor, he was then, and continued to be, intensely intuitive, interested, perceptive, and generous. I am only one of many, many poets whose work was enhanced by Dick's attention, by his willingness to teach us not how to write as he wrote, but how to write in our own best voices. He was a rarity---a poetry mentor who wanted his students to be as good as he was, or better than he was, at putting words on a page. Very simply, he loved poetry, and devoted his life to it, to his own poems and to the poems of others. Midway in our tutorial, Dick invited me home to meet his wife, Lori Negridge Allen, a poet and writer, and a woman who immediately became my friend. I've been honored to know Dick and Lori for 34 years. In-between frequent visits, we corresponded regularly, first in letters and then in email. I've spent countless hours with Dick and Lori, and I've benefited immensely from his mentoring, his generosity in promoting my work (and the work of so many others), the example of his poetry, and the warmth with which he and Lori made me a part of their family. We have shared many sorrows and many joys. Dick's death is one of the sorrows that Lori and I, and so many others, share. But Dick has gifted us with much joy as well, in our memories of him, and in the poems and essays he has left with us for safe keeping.
Marilyn Johnston
Dick Allen inspired me with his books, his readings, and with his presence on the poetry scene. I recall his warm handshake, the way he had of receiving a person and resuming a conversation as if it were always ongoing in the universe. I recall his unfailing kindness. The nod and conspiratorial wink. What were we co-conspirators of? Poetry? Belief in humanity? Buddha's wisdom? Perhaps all of these. His perseverance in the art of writing poetry kept so many of us going. I was privileged to read with him on the bill once at Victoria Munoz's venue in Waterbury Library. One of my private milestones as a poet. I invited him to feature at my Wintonbury Poetry Series, twice, in Bloomfield. He blurbed my second book from Antrim House. I spent a week writing an introduction speech for him that I delivered at one of Lonnie Black's poetry nights at the West Hartford Art League. He announced to the audience that night that Lonnie's intro and mine were the best he'd ever received. Another private milestone! He was able to validate a person in a way that meant something because his own excellence and devotion in being a poet were so monumental. Out of the blue he chose my poem in a contest run by Newtown magazine several years ago. At the tribute reading to Leo Connellan months later, I was able to thank him. Recently, I was enjoying his new book, Zen Master. I told him how much I loved the book just this past November as we both stood in the book signing line for Paul Mariani at the Wallace Stevens Birthday Bash. Dick modeled what it was to learn from others, thank others and support others. In Zen Master I learned that when he was an undergraduate, he had met Alan Watts, an idol for both of us. I emailed Dick with a request to describe that meeting with Watts for me. He did so at length, saying that Watts had the most intense eyes he had ever seen. He felt Watts' spirit. Dick Allen remains that for me, an unforgettable spirit I can still access in his books, a rare light, a memorable, supportive friend on the path.
Sydney Lea
Sad as I am to note Dick Allen’s passing, I am pleased that, on reading (or re-reading) “Mr. Gorsline’s Town” in the last issue, I wrote to him both to applaud and to reminisce. I recalled that, when I first started thinking of myself as a poet-in-the-making, Dick’s Regions With No Proper Names (St. Martin’s, 1975) was among the first contemporary volumes that spoke to me. I’m not sure I ever shared this intelligence with him; I think or at least hope so. Over the years, I saw the poet less often than I wish I had, but we remained in touch after I first published him in New England Review, and word from him was not only always a pleasure but always in one measure or another an enlightenment. The Buddhism of Dick’s later life is continuous with something at the heart of his work ab origine. One sees it already in “Mr. Gorsline’s Town”: the notion that the most important realities lie behind the scrim of preoccupations, anxieties, and aspirations that we all experience. I will hold Dick– and on my better days, his example– close to my heart for as long as I tread the earth. R.I.P., good man.
Marilyn Taylor
I first met Dick Allen on line in the early 2000’s, as a result of his sending me a very nice note about one of my poems that he’d seen published somewhere. I responded to thank him, he responded to my thank-you, and the rest is history. We carried on a correspondence from that time forward, which included poems (of course), poetry news, observations on life (often involving Zen), terribly lame jokes, politics, even forwarded videos of cute kittens. I read with him twice in Connecticut, and also visited him and Lori on several occasions at their home in Trumbull, which, of course, overflows with poetry and conviviality. My heart aches, and my deepest condolences go out to Lori, Tanya, Rich, and everyone else who loved him.
John Stanizzi
Since I was a kid -- Dick is 11 years older than I -- Dick's name was the name in poetry in Connecticut. Every young, aspiring poet around these parts was well aware of the presence of this great artist, and if he were reading somewhere, we (my gang of juvenile poets and me), would find a way to be there. As the years passed, and we both grew older, we simply became friends, naturally and unnoticibly; we'd see each other at readings -- the Sunken Garden, Wintonbury,the Wadsworth Atheneum, the West Side Poetry Series, and so many other venues here in Connecticut. And every once in a while, we'd be published in the same journal (a profound honor for me, to be sure!). We had become aware of one another, and then we became friends. I once did a lecture on Dick's life and poetry at the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, CT. He was the featured reader that night, and I was chosen to present this prelude. Later in the evening, as folks were heading down into the spectacular "Sunken Garden" to hear Dick read, he took me aside to say, "I heard your talk went very well. Thank you so much." There was tremendous catharsis in this simple comment. More recently, I had published a piece in V-V and Dick wrote me with a comment about this really long poem, "John, I think the real poem, the whole poem, is right here," -- and he pointed out three lines! And he was right. In among all the noise of this four page "rambler," Dick showed where the poem actually resided, gently and kindly. That's how he was -- brilliant, gifted, and gentle. It is difficult to imagine the world without our dear Dick Allen. Rest peacefully, dear friend.
Judy Kronenfeld
Dick Allen – A Small Remembrance
I didn’t know Dick Allen personally at all. But I have treasured poems like “Then” and “Still Waters” for a long time. And I admire the way—as I said in a note to Dick about “The Beginner” in an issue of V-V—his poetry is steeped in and has totally absorbed literary tradition, but wears it lightly, and for his own purposes. I loved his response to my note. Dick took time to second my sense of the form of his poem (a kind of truncated sestina) and elaborate on how that came about. He revealed in a personal and natural way how “scary” it was to have meditation begin to really work. And he kindly praised the “extremely tactile sense-abounding element” of my own poems and quoted one of them. Focused astute attention, humanity, graciousness—there it was. When the “white horse” comes “galloping toward us,” there is “No road / of words we might take,” Dick writes in “Then.” But he has left us a road of amazing words to take over and over again.
Tricia Knoll
Over the last year as my interest in Zen continued to grow, I enjoyed a series of email correspondences with Dick Allen. After reading his Zen Master Poems, I wrote one inspired by one of his poems. He added one word to the last line and that made the poem. I'm grateful for the brief correspondence we shared and his Zen Master website which I flagged to read every Monday.
Barbara Crooker
I first met Dick at the West Chester Poetry Conference some years ago, where I was awed by his brilliance. He was unfailing in his kindness to me, sending notes when I had a poem appear on The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Dail, etc. Later, he asked if he could be my mentor, something that those of us outside the loop of MFA programs never get to have. He helped me with the ordering of my third book, More, and wrote me a blurb, which began:“To say it flat out: From her hiding place in Fogelsville, Pennsylvania, Barbara Crooker has been writing—one by one—some of the finest poems in America. More contains many of these poems.”
I’m blushing right now, as I type this. We continued our friendship over the years, and I continued in my admiration for his work. Our last exchange of emails was on the morning of his death; there were no hints of what was coming, just the flow of words between friends. And now words fail me, other than to say I’ll miss his friendship, and I’ll miss his poems. RIP, dear friend.
Joan Leotta
Dick Allen's poem, shared on FB by John Stanizzi, "If you get there before I do", is a wonderful expression of the hope those of us left behind can have when a loved one goes on ahead of us. As one who mostly knew his work thru VV, his voice enriched my world and I am glad he left us writings to continue his impact on our hearts
Alan Walowitz
Since I’d known the name Dick Allen pretty much ever since I started reading poetry, I found it hard, once I’d joined Verse-Virtual, to write him an email telling him how much I admired his work. Who was I to tell Dick Allen I liked his poetry? Finally did so in January of 2017 when he published Don’t Tell Me There’s No Hope. The poem spoke to me and gave me something to aspire to. Dick wrote back to say thanks and to tell me he liked my poems in January’s issue--and he told me exactly what he liked. I’ve hung onto that email with gladness and pride--and now sadness that it took me so long to get that conversation started.
Sarah White
Where else but in Verse-Virtual could I have known the pleasure of writing Dick Allen, a distinguished poet I’d never met, to thank him with all my heart for expressing his hatred of African Violets (V-V, May, 2016)?
I’ve always
despised their creepy caterpillar-furry hairy leaves,
their flimsy little stalks
like over-cooked strands of angel-hair spaghetti.
How else but through V-V could I have received his gracious response, unequivocally confirming his own dislike and supporting mine plus a few other random phobias I admitted to (e.g. Chihuahua dogs). Poets, especially Buddhist poets, are supposed to LOVE all flowers, plants, and creatures, leaving the rest of us abashed by our own stinginess of heart. This man was generous to a heart in one of its less-than-loving moments. I am grateful that he left a world of beautiful, funny poems that will ease my abashment for years to come.
Robert Wexelblatt
After admiring Dick Allen’s contributions to Verse-Virtual month after month, I wrote to thank him for his wonderful curse poem. He wrote back thoughtfully and instructively which, I gather, was typical of his exchanges with other writers. He also took the trouble to comment graciously and encouragingly on my own modest contribution of that month. I can see from the many tributes that Dick Allen was a generous master who fulfilled Auden’s injunction that one should never say anything to a young writer that might cause him or her to cease writing. I was particularly grateful for the glimpse he gave me into his workshop: “Thank you especially for noting the poem’s sounds, for they drove the poem into its end and, frankly, I pulled back and listened (this is a Romantic view of the Muse dictating, but often it’s how I seem to hear poems). “Crepuscular” was a total revelation and a word I’d never anticipated. It actually sounds much worse than it is, I found from its definition.” The loss of Dick Allen doesn’t have a remedy.
David Graham
Sad to say, I never met Dick Allen face to face. Nor can I now remember when his wonderfully varied and surprising poetry appeared on my horizon, but it was many years before I became a sporadic but grateful email correspondent of his. I know I read and admired his new & selected poems, Ode to the Cold War, which came out in 1997. But I’d been enjoying his work in journals for years before that, and I have a feeling that it was my old professor and mentor Sydney Lea who probably urged me to read Dick Allen in the first place. In any event, I’ve always had a great fondness for poets who steer clear of mere poetic fashion, and who thus elude most critical labels. From start to finish, Dick Allen’s poetry was dedicated to seeking the truth in its many guises, and this no doubt informed the great variety of styles, tones, and forms in which he wrote. I also can’t recall exactly when we became email pen-pals, but I do know it was Marilyn Taylor who suggested that I write to him. He wrote back, of course, promptly and beautifully, and I cherished our (very haphazard on my end) correspondence from then on. I was naturally flattered by the intelligent praise he sometimes offered for my own work. And in fact it was only after news of his sudden death began circulating that I fully realized how many poets he befriended in this way. My already great estimation of his character rose in proportion as my pride in his praise was put into more reasonable perspective. I now see that in addition to his great poetic gift he truly had the knack of a fine teacher and good friend: making many others feel a keen sense of their own worth.
David K. Leff
Dick Allen was a master of the sweet juxtaposition. He had a way of weaving popular culture with deep learning to create something wholly new and different. Dick had wisdom informed by an abiding Buddhism and a realistic political outlook on the world. He had a playful way with words, even when deadly serious. His love of language was contagious.
Dick was a natural teacher and you didn’t have to sit in his classroom to feel the warmth of his knowledge and advice. I was never a student of his, but I learned as much about poetry from him as from anyone. A colleague of my mother at the University of Bridgeport, Dick gave me my first book of adult poetry in 1971 when I was sixteen. It was his first book, Anon and Various Time Machine Poems. I cherish that volume, which still shares an honored place on my bookshelf. Anon led me down the rabbit hole of poetry for which I could never express enough gratitude. Dick and I went for about a decade without seeing each other, but renewed our friendship when he read at the Sunken Garden in 1997. I had him sign my copy of the book he had given me so many years ago, and he dedicated it to “all those old Anon times.”
Since our acquaintance was rekindled, I’d see Dick a few times each year. We had what he would call “wild rapport,” engaging in poetry talk and about our joys and concerns with the contemporary social landscape. I was honored by his cover reviews of two of my own volumes of poetry. Dick could turn the most ordinary moment into a magical experience. I will miss him, but continue to read his work and find him with me.
Leslie McGrath
I was fortunate to have been introduced to Dick in 2002 by the poets Jeffrey Skinner and Sarah Gorham, who were spending a long residency at the James Merrill House in Stonington. Dick had been Jeff's mentor at the University of Bridgeport; Sarah and Jeff were Dick's poetry publishers through Sarabande Books, their small literary press in Louisville. I was 45, considering an MFA, and looking to be talked out of it. Instead, Dick took an interest in my early poems and was a steadfast encourager. He took me seriously and showered me with book suggestions. He and Lori were a beautiful duprass. I can see them sitting close-eyed and enraptured at poetry readings around CT. Years ago the three of us took an overnight road trip to PA for a reading. I remember little about the event, but the stories they told of their annual driving trips around the country continue to furnish my dreams, as do many of his poems.
Neil Creighton
One of the great things about Verse-Virtual is how it functions as a village. This village was my introduction to Dick Allen and on many occasions I wrote to him a brief note of appreciation for his beautiful poems. I think the graciousness and generosity of his response says so much about him and I quote from several of his emails by way of demonstration. In response to my comments on “Hornets’ Nests” he wrote:
Thank you, Neil, for that splendid appreciation of my poem,”Hornets’ Nests.” I most particularly have gratitude for how you’ve pointed out the ambiguity of having to kill in order to stop being attacked. Even before the use of drones in the Middle East, I think the poem was thinking about drones.
I also wrote to him about “The Accompanist”. This is what he wrote back. I think it says a great deal about him.
Thank you, Neil! I’d not thought of that connection with J. Alfred Prufrock (I’d taught that poem for years and years), but you’re right, not Prufrock’s self-pity and lament, but a praise to those who aid and enable without feeling envy, those who take charge of their “part.” Like all of us have to do—and I’m thinking of even important politicians who have to raise their hands like everyone else during meetings. And although I really like giving poetry readings, I’m very happy to introduce the guest poet and then sit back and listen while she or he reads and gains applause. Thank you especially for seeing the wider application of “The Accompanist.”
Finally, Dick was generous and encouraging and sent warm notes of appreciation for my own poems, thanking me for “the intensity and love of your poems”. Part of his note on my poem, “Temple”, is worthy of inclusion for what it says about him. He wrote:
Thank you, Neil, and for your “Temple,” with its perfected form and its “stained-glass blaze of light,” the poem’s hewn imagery. My wife and I have long been obsessed with warning about the environment and what we’re doing to it. In fact much of a college textbook/anothology we did for Harcourt Brace Jovanovic (Looking Ahead: The Vision of Science Fiction, 1975) was aimed at increasing awareness even back then, when we could have done so much more to forestall what’s happening now.
I’m so grateful to have this opportunity to reach across the mighty Pacific Ocean and the North American continent and have this brief contact with this warm, generous and modest man.
Vale, Dick Allen.
Pit Pinegar
To share a room with Dick Allen was to be in the presence of kindness and gentle grace...he might be teaching, reading, he might be colleague or member of an audience. His intelligence and spirit and attention sparked and sparkled, but it was the gentle grace that I will remember most...and Lori at his side always.