The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
CITY LOSES ‘VISIONARY’ ARTS ‘PIONEER’
First poet laureate Susan Allison dies at 56
MIDDLETOWN — The Middletown arts community lost this week a woman many consider a visionary poet who was loved by all who knew her.
The city’s first poet laureate, Susan Eastman Allison, died at 56 after a battle with cancer, according to her husband, Middletown’s retiring arts and culture office coordinator Stephan Allison.
Her longtime friend Marcella Trowbridge, artistic director of Artfarm, a nonprofit, professional theater organization based in Middletown, said Susan Allison “carved out a nook and a haven in the North End for all kinds of folks.”
A celebration of her life is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. June 16 at the Community Health Center. There is a private funeral service for family and invited guests.
Allison’s third book will be published by Ibis Books this month, and a fourth is in the works. Her husband said he and their son are setting up a fund for a creative-writing scholarship in her name with the Community Foundation of Middlesex County.
Born in Derby, Allison
was raised in Louisville, Ky. In 1985, she earned a bachelor of arts degree in African studies from Wesleyan University after traveling through East Africa. Following graduation, she opened a shop for old and rare books , Ibis Books & Gallery, on Rapallo Avenue in the North End.
In 1991, the shop became North End Arts Rising, Inc./The Buttonwood Tree, an arts and cultural performance space that later moved to Main Street, where it now sits.
Arts Commissioner Barbara Arafeh, director of the Middletown Concert Association and Middletuners senior chorus, recalled the Buttonwood Tree when it opened. She was impressed by all the books.
“Susan was very pioneering, bringing in a storefront bookstore like that in the North End.”
Anne-Marie CannataMcEwen, executive director of The Buttonwood Tree, said the venue “wouldn’t have been here without Susan. She accepted people and never judged them. She wrote from the heart and people identified with her poems.”
Her work has drawn critical praise.
Middletown’s John Basinger,
“Poetry was not something she did — it was who she was. To be around her was to see the world afresh. Your understanding of it changed.”
Betsy Morgan, former director of Oddfellows Playhouse
best known for committing to memory John Milton’s 17th-century epic poem “Paradise Lost,” and for his performances of King Lear and others on Broadway, describeds Susan Allison’s poems: “Diamonds emerge from carbon under pressure, not laid out on black velvet, but set in mother earth.”
Connecticut Poet Laureate Rennie McQuilkin, in his review of Allison’s book of poems, “Down by the Riverside Ways,” wrote that, under her touch, “Middletown, Connecticut, becomes a metaphor for middle America.”
In October 2015, the Middletown Commission on the Arts named her the city’s first poet laureate, with a three-year term. Two former Macdonough Elementary School students petitioned Mayor Dan Drew to create a poet laureate for the city.
In that role, Susan Allison set a benchmark for others to follow, said Lee Godburn, Middletown Arts Commission chairman.
“Susan was sunshine. She was free-spirited, but always a lady. An advocate to artists, she herself was a talented one. Her death is a loss to the city.”
Julia Faraci, a member of the MCA, echoed Godburn’s comments. She called Susan Allison’s death “a great loss. Susan was warm, gracious, funny and a passionate advocate for the arts.”
Rolande Duprey, community services librarian for Russell Library, recalls a reading of “Riverside Ways” the poet gave at the library in 2015.
“Susan wasn’t sure she had the strength to do it. So, several people joined in and finished her reading for her.”
Duprey called it “magic the way she connected with people — she inspired them. She had a poet’s corner here at the library and the people came. She was amazing.”
Betsy Morgan and Jean Shaw, both retired, recalled Allison with fondness.
Morgan, former director of Oddfellows Playhouse, a youth theater program, met Allison when Morgan was an administrator for the program.
“I loved working with Susan,” she said. “Poetry was not something she did — it was who she was. To be around her was to see the world afresh. Your understanding of it changed.”
Shaw, former director of the Center for the Arts at Wesleyan University, said the Allisons were passionate about whatever they did.
“They were dedicated in making the world a better place to live,” she said. “Susan was a woman of substance and a loyal friend. I will miss her profoundly.”
Stephan Allison said his wife “was driven by her love for others and their possibilities.”
Trowbridge praised her willingness to encourage others to find their true selves.
“We may have lost something precious in losing Susan. “[Still,] she will continue in the sunsets by the river, in the North End chatter, in the clank of silverware at the table, in the irises that burgeon from the earth in the spring, in our drive to work for tolerance, equity and justice, in the music at the Buttonwood Tree, and in helping to remind us to be here now, to take note, say it out loud, and love well.”