Ochester, Edwin Frank (Ed)
Born: September 15, 1939, Brooklyn, New York
Vocations: Poet, Professor, Editor
Geographic Connection to Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh, Allegheny County; Shelocta, Armstrong
County
Keywords: Bennington College; Cornell University; Creative Achievement Award; Devins Award for Poetry; Harvard University; The Land of Cockaigne; Pitt Poetry Series; The Pittsburgh Book of Contemporary American Poetry; Pittsburgh Poetry Series; Public Poetry Project; Pushcart Prize; Snow White Horses; University of Alabama at Birmingham; University of Florida; University of Pittsburgh; University of Wisconsin-Madison
Abstract: Born in Brooklyn, New York, on September 15, 1939, Ed Ochester spent most of his professional life teaching English at the University of Pittsburgh. A prolific and skilled writer, Ochester has published over ten volumes of poetry and has served as editor for several different publications. Among his critically acclaimed works are The Land of Cockaigne and Changing the Name to Ochester, an autobiographical work that reflects on his ethnic upbringing. Ochester has won the Devins Award for Poetry, a Pushcart Prize, and Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s 10th annual Creative Achievement Award. With his wife, Clarina, he lives on a small farm in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania.
Biography:
Ed Ochester was born on September 15, 1939 in Brooklyn, New York to Viola Ochester and Edwin Otto, an insurance broker. In 1961 Ochester received his B.A. from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. He then earned his Masters degree in 1963 from Harvard University. On June 16, 1965, Ochester married Clarina Britton and together they had two children, Edwin Hall and Elizabeth Britton. Ochester’s next university experience was at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he remained until 1967, earning his Masters of Fine Arts. Upon completion of his M.F.A., Ochester’s first poetry compilation, We Like It Here, was published. Two fellow writers who influenced Ochester were Robert Bly, a fellow Harvard graduate, and Mark Strand. Bly is a controversial artist known for his poetry and storytelling; and Strand is a Pulitzer Prize winning poet.
Ochester began his teaching career as an assistant professor of English at the University of Florida, Gainesville, where he remained from 1967 to 1970. Ochester then moved to Pittsburgh where he lived much of his life. Starting as an instructor of English in 1970, Ochester began a long career with the University of Pittsburgh, becoming an assistant professor in 1974, an associate professor 1977, and a full professor in 1983. While at the University of Pittsburgh, Ochester also co-founded and directed Pitt’s Graduate Writing Program from 1978 to 1983 and again from 1986 to 1998.
While living and working in Pittsburgh, Ochester served as editor of the Pitt Poetry Series and The Drue Heinz Literature Prize for short fiction. Ochester was also coeditor of The Pittsburgh Book of Contemporary American Poetry and a poetry magazine entitled 5AM; each of these publications was developed by The University of Pittsburgh Press.
Noted for being humorous, compassionate, and true to the human condition, Ochester’s work has been published in a number of magazines and journals—Agni, American Poetry Review, Chiron Review, Georgia Review, Mother Jones, The Nation, Pearl, Ploughshares,POETRY, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review—and featured in several anthologies of contemporary poetry. For his poetry, Ochester has received fellowships from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. In 1973, Ochester won the Devins Award for Poetry for Dancing on the Edges of Knives; in 1993 he was given a Pushcart Prize for his poem “Oh, By the Way”; and in 2001 he received Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s 10th annual Creative Achievement Award.
What the Frost Casts Up
A crown of handmade nails, as though
there were a house here once, burned,
where we’ve gardened for fifteen years;
the ceramic top of an ancient fuse;
this spring the tiny head of a plastic doll--
not much compared to what they find
in England, where every now and then
a coin of the Roman emperors, Severus
or Constantius, works its way up, but
something, as though nothing we’ve
ever touched wants to stay in the earth,
the patient artifacts waiting, having been lost
or cast away, as though they couldn’t bear
the parting, or because they are the only
messengers from lives that were important once,
waiting for the power of the frost
to move them to the mercy of our hands.from The Land of Cockaigne by Ed Ochester, Story Line Press, 2001.
In 1998 Ochester resigned as director of Pitt’s Graduate Writing Program to read, write, and do visiting professorships at other universities. After a brief stint as Jemison Professor at The University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1994, Ochester took a position teaching in the M.F.A. program at Bennington College in Vermont. When not away working as a visiting professor, Ochester can be found currently at his permanent home in Pennsylvania, where he pursues decidedly non-academic interests. As he explained in a recent interview, “Since 1972 my wife and I have lived on a small farm in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, where we raise most of our own food organically and have attempted to return as rapidly as possible to a closer, more satisfying relationship with the earth.” Ochester has published his most recent work with Poetry Magazine.
Works:
Poetry
Anthologies
Sources:
This biography was prepared by Katie Becker, Spring 2005.