‘Father’ of Pittsburgh poets
Ed Ochester longtime chair of Pitt’s Writing Program
Ed Ochester, who died Tuesday near his home in Girty, Armstrong County, was a beloved poet, mentor and educator whose impact on Pittsburgh’s writing scene cannot be overstated.
He arrived in the Steel City in 1970, after a childhood in Brooklyn and earning a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and master’s degrees from Harvard University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
He taught at the University of Pittsburgh and chaired the creative writing program at Pitt for 28 years, helping to establish it as the force that it is, and mentoring many of the distinguished writers who have taught there since.
From 1978-2021, Mr. Ochester was the editor of the Pitt Poetry Series at the University of Pittsburgh Press. He oversaw the publication of hundreds of awardwinning and career-defining collections, including many authored by poets of color and from marginalized backgrounds.
When he retired, poet Toi Derricote stated that he was “certainly the most important editor of the 20th century.”
Ellen McGrath Smith, a poet who received her MFA at Pitt and currently is a teaching professor in Pitt’s Writing Program, studied under Mr. Ochester.
“Ed was instrumental in making Pittsburgh a city of poets through his commitment to Pitt’s Writing Program as well as his decades-long work with the Pitt Poetry Series,” she said. “He supported working-class voices in the writing program in ways that made first-generation students like me feel welcome.”
He cared deeply about his students, dedicating time and effort to reviewing multiple drafts of every poem. His workshops were full of generative energy, and every student walked away not only a better poet, but smarter and more articulate about their craft.
Mr. Ochester published 19 books of poetry, including the 1993 anthology “The Pittsburgh Book of Contemporary American Poetry,” “Changing the Name to Ochester” and “Dancing on the Edges of Knives,” which won the 1973 Devins Award for Poetry. He received fellowships in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
He wrote many short poems, grappling with nature through wry observations, never too far from a bittersweet note. It’s not hard to see the influence of Pittsburgh in Mr. Ochester’s poetry. Take, for example, “Fall” from his 2015 collection “Sugar Run Road” (Autumn House Press):
Crows, crows, crows, crows then the slow flapaway over the hill and the dead oak is naked
The image of countless crows is not an unfamiliar sight in Pittsburgh. And the haunting nudity of the oak tree at the end of the poem carries with it a tremendous grief, a void where life once was, now moved beyond the tangible. Mr. Ochester’s poetry packs a big punch while economizing his words.
Kristofer Collins, the books editor of Pittsburgh Magazine, said Mr. Ochester’s “influence as a writer and editor ... was unavoidable.
“If there is such a thing as a Pittsburgh School of Poetry, then Ed is the father of it. His poems are tough and tender, funny and sad. They are self-aware but never full of themselves,” Mr. Collins said, quoting lines from the 2017 poem “Poetry” in Pittsburgh Quarterly:
“I too dislike it / the mystified truisms / the dusty puzzle-prunes / the theatrical exaggerations”
Tributes to Mr. Ochester are easy to find on social media. Lovers of poetry have joined together to grieve his passing, but also to offer a testament to his life and the influence he had on this region’s best literary minds.
Ms. Smith said it best: “Poets in Pittsburgh stand on his shoulders.”