I discovered poetry in a senior English class at Hamden High School in Hamden, CT. The teacher introduced us to Shakespeare's sonnets, to T.S. Eliot and to Yeats. I loved the sonnets and wrote several of my own, now lost, I'm afraid. I was overpowered by "The Wasteland" and the "Four Quartets," and by "Sailing to Byzantium." When I began my studies at Wellesley College, I quickly decided to major in English. My knowledge and love of poetry expanded greatly during my four college years, but I did no creative work, wrote not a single poem there.
My studies as an English major earned me my first two jobs, the first as an editorial correspondent at the National Geographic Society, the second as an editorial secretary at Allyn and Bacon Publishers. These positions offered little opportunity for creative work, and I left the publishing world with no regrets. Newly married, my husband I traveled to London where he became an Assistant Registrar at the National Heart Hospital and I began studies at University College, London that would eventually lead to an MA in Classics from UC Los Angeles, and a PhD in Classics at Columbia University. My doctoral work focused on Greek poetry, and I wrote my PhD thesis on the choral lyric poet Pindar. I spent the succeeding forty three years teaching Classics at various schools, gradually shifting from Greek to Latin poetry. It was while teaching Classics at Dartmouth College that I met Donald Sheehan, then Director of the Frost Place in Franconia, New Hampshire. This meeting, and the courses Don and I taught together were the source of my rediscovery of the joys of reading and writing poetry.
My studies as an English major earned me my first two jobs, the first as an editorial correspondent at the National Geographic Society, the second as an editorial secretary at Allyn and Bacon Publishers. These positions offered little opportunity for creative work, and I left the publishing world with no regrets. Newly married, my husband I traveled to London where he became an Assistant Registrar at the National Heart Hospital and I began studies at University College, London that would eventually lead to an MA in Classics from UC Los Angeles, and a PhD in Classics at Columbia University. My doctoral work focused on Greek poetry, and I wrote my PhD thesis on the choral lyric poet Pindar. I spent the succeeding forty three years teaching Classics at various schools, gradually shifting from Greek to Latin poetry. It was while teaching Classics at Dartmouth College that I met Donald Sheehan, then Director of the Frost Place in Franconia, New Hampshire. This meeting, and the courses Don and I taught together were the source of my rediscovery of the joys of reading and writing poetry.