Gloria Oden facts for kids

Gloria Catherine Oden (born October 30, 1923 – died December 16, 2011) was an American poet, editor, and a retired English professor. She was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1979. This was for her book Resurrections. This collection of poems shared her feelings about a sad event in her family.

Gloria Oden's Early Life and Schooling

Gloria Oden was born in Yonkers, New York, on October 30, 1923. She was the youngest of six children. Her father was a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Her mother had gone to college. Her parents taught her to value education and smart thinking. Gloria and her siblings had to learn and recite poetry.

Her early church training also taught her about the rhythm and structure of poems. One of her professors called her a "Black Puritan" and a "critical little Blue Stocking." This meant she was very serious and smart. Gloria felt a bit separate from her older brothers and sisters. There was an eight-year age gap between her and the next oldest sibling.

She described her childhood as quite strict. She said she was not raised "on the street" but within her family. She was the youngest and felt distant from her siblings. Her father was a community leader. He wanted his children to be good examples. Gloria said she did not like it then. But later, she appreciated the self-discipline it taught her.

Gloria felt very close to her father's church community. She learned to see beyond skin color there. She saw people from all backgrounds in the church.

School Days and College Life

Gloria Oden went to schools where students of different races learned together. She finished New Rochelle High School in 1939. She did not know much about racial unfairness happening in the country at that time. She remembered that there were few other Black children in her classes. She did not visit other children's homes, and they did not visit hers.

She attended Howard University for both her college and law school studies. This was a family tradition. She earned her bachelor's degree in 1944. She then got her law degree in 1948. Howard University was a big change for her. She had been quite separated from other kids during her childhood. She wrote about her mother taking her to Howard in a poem. She was dressed in a pink dress with bows.

Gloria Oden's Career Path

Gloria Oden never worked as a lawyer. She felt that Black Americans needed a profession to succeed. She was trained to teach or practice law. But she did not want to do either. After college, she stayed in Washington D.C. She took a government job. In 1951, she moved to New York City. There, she worked for The National Infantile Paralysis Foundation.

In the early 1950s, Gloria spent three months in Israel. This was during a time when many Israelis from around the world moved to the new state of Israel. When she came back to New York, she lived in an apartment on East Fourth Street for many years.

Working in Publishing and Teaching

From 1961 to 1978, Oden worked as an editor for different academic journals and publishers. She was an editor for the American Journal of Physics. Around 1963, she worked in personnel at a law firm in Manhattan. Pauli Murray, another Howard University graduate, also worked there as a lawyer.

Oden left the law firm to start a magazine called The Urbanite. This magazine aimed to share different views from another magazine called Ebony. When her magazine closed, she worked for the American Institute of Physics for five years. Then she worked for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for a year and a half.

After that, Oden went back to publishing. She edited math and science textbooks for two different companies. From 1969 to 1971, she took graduate classes at New York University. Later, she joined the faculty at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). She became a full professor before she retired in 1996. At UMBC, Oden mainly taught creative writing. She also did research on writers like Charles Chesnutt and Charlotte Forten Grimké.

Gloria Oden's Poetry Journey

Gloria Oden started writing poetry when she was very young. She wrote poems from first grade all the way through college and law school. She published her first book of poems herself in 1952. It was called The Naked Frame. It was a collection of love poems and sonnets. She decided to publish it after reading an article by Mark Van Doren. He wrote that poets need to share their work to see how good they are.

This was a big risk for Oden. She spent a lot of money to print The Naked Frame. It cost as much as 18 weeks of her salary. She had to take out a loan against her life insurance.

It turned out that Oden was indeed a very good poet. This first book helped her enter "the world of poetry." This small book had 24 poems. It showed her beautiful writing style and her skill with poetic forms.

The Naked Frame received a good review from J. Saunders Redding. Around that time, Oden discovered the work of Richard Wilbur. She also joined a small group studying with Kimon Friar, which included James Merrill. This was her first time being part of a group of writers. She was surprised because she did not know other young people who wrote poetry.

She was encouraged to apply for a fellowship for writers. She received it from Arna Bontemps. After that, she applied for and received a residency at Yaddo. She stayed there for two months. There, she met Elizabeth Ames and Stephen Stepanchev. When she returned to New York, she took classes with Louise Bogan and Léonie Adams.

Publishing and Connections

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Oden continued to publish her poems. Her work appeared in small magazines like The Muse and Saturday Review. In 1959, a rejection from Saturday Review led to a meeting with the poetry editor, John Ciardi. He was also the director of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. He invited her to apply. She received a scholarship and attended. This was a very important experience for her.

Ciardi introduced her to Robert Frost. At the conference, her poetry was reviewed by Dudley Fitts. During this time, she also exchanged letters with Kenneth Rexroth. He encouraged her and sent her many of his books. Other young poets there included Richard Yates and Edward Wallant. Importantly, it was also the first time Oden met young Black writers. These included John A. Williams and Sylvester Leaks.

Around 1960, Oden also met and became friends with Langston Hughes. They shared their work and wrote friendly letters until his death. Oden's last letter to Hughes was just eleven days before he passed away. She thanked him for a book and told him about a new short story she was writing. She remembered that he would call her late at night to chat. She felt honored but also a bit annoyed because she went to bed early for her job.

Her poems were also included in several collections of African American poetry. These included American Negro Poetry: An Anthology (1963) edited by Arna Bontemps. Also, New Negro Poets U.S.A. (1964) edited by Langston Hughes. And Kaleidoscope: Poems by American Negro Poets (1967) edited by Robert Hayden.

Later Works and Themes

Oden's second book of poetry, Resurrections, came out in 1979. It was written after a very sad event in her family in 1974. The book has 49 poems. They are about memories of her family and her childhood. There are also love poems. She mostly used a formal, rhythmic style. This book was nominated for the 1979 Pulitzer Prize. Critics reviewed it positively.

Oden's third book, The Ties that Bind (1980), was a tribute to her father. It showed how much he influenced her life. The first poem describes him:

This small book has eight poems. They are like hymns and are organized by days of the week. She follows her father's daily schedule, ending on Sunday services.

Oden's fourth book, Appearances, was published in 2004. She was 81 years old. This was her biggest work. It had almost 90 poems and over 200 pages. In this book, she used less formal styles. Many poems were in free verse. Most of the poems were very personal. She also wrote about other poets like Ciardi and Tennyson. She explored big questions from thinkers like Plato and Spinoza. She thought about how reason and feelings connect. She often favored feelings and imagination.

In Appearances, Oden looked at many different topics. The title suggests new openness. She shared new thoughts about past experiences. For example, she showed respect for her father. But she also expressed some relief after his death. This allowed her to leave a difficult marriage and write freely. She wrote that if her father had not died, she might not be the poet she was. These poems also show her accepting how she looked. She knew she did not meet her mother's expectations. But through poetry, she found confidence. She bravely stated that a woman who chose not to marry her husband once told her she was not attractive. Oden said if that woman thought it was new information, she was mistaken.

Most recently, in March 2011, Gloria Oden published Homage. She described it as a song of praise for small Black churches across America. These churches helped people seek rights after slavery. Her father's church in Yonkers was an example. Three of her poems were published in Inertia Magazine in 2008. Since retiring from UMBC in 1996, she lived in Catonsville, Maryland.

Major Influences on Gloria Oden

Gloria Oden learned about poetry from Kimon Friar, Louise Bogan, and Léonie Adams. Later, she connected with writers like Arna Bontemps, Robert Hayden, and Mark Van Doren. She was friends with Langston Hughes and Sam Allen. She read her poems with Amiri Baraka and Sonia Sanchez. She also worked at the same law firm as Pauli Murray. Oden felt that meeting these people was very important for her to become a poet.

Critic C.K. Doreski believes that Elizabeth Bishop greatly influenced Oden's early poetry. Oden found one of Bishop's books around 1955. She wrote to Bishop, and they began exchanging letters. Bishop later recommended Oden for her residency at Yaddo. Oden did not meet many Black poets until the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference years later. So, these friendships with white women writers were very important for her.

Marianne Moore also encouraged Oden early on. Oden remembered Moore giving her a sandwich and milk because she looked thin. Then, Moore carefully reviewed all of Oden's poems. She had read them beforehand. When Oden left, Moore gave her pages of notes. Moore wrote, "Full of merit; threatened by trifles." Oden was very happy. Moore also convinced Oden to stop signing her poems "G.C. Oden." She had done this because of unfairness against female poets.

Her long friendship with Langston Hughes also shows he was an important mentor. However, her relationship with "Black poetry" was sometimes complex. She often felt her writing was overlooked. This was because her poetry was not clearly "Black" in its style or language. Still, critic Doreski points out that Oden cared about poetry as an art form for everyone. This puts her in the same tradition as poets like Countee Cullen and Elizabeth Bishop.

Her different communities clearly saw her as an important poet. For example, she was among a group of Black poets, artists, and scholars. They met in 1972 to celebrate the 100th birthday of Paul Laurence Dunbar. She read her poems alongside famous writers like Nikki Giovanni and Alice Walker.

Oden believed that Black people in the United States are American, not African. She wrote this in an essay. She felt that being a Black artist in the U.S. was not easy. She believed Black artists had a special duty. They should work with everyone to create an image of America. This image should include contributions from all different groups.