Deborah Digges (February 6, 1950 – April 10, 2009) was an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

and teacher.

Biography

She was born Deborah Leah Sugarbaker in

Jefferson City, Missouri Jefferson City, informally Jeff City, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital of the U.S. state of Missouri. It had a population of 43,228 at the 2020 United States census, ranking as the List of cities in Missouri, 16th most popu ...

, on February 6, 1950. Her father was a physician and her mother was a nurse; she was the sixth child in a family of ten children. Digges received a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

degree from the

University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Riverside, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of Cali ...

in 1976, a

Master's A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

from the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou or MU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Univers ...

in 1982, and her

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admi ...

in Poetry from the Iowa Writers Workshop in 1984. In the course of her academic career, she taught in the writing and English faculties of

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, and

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, as well as Talloires, France. Tufts also has several Doctor of Physical Therapy p ...

. She authored four books of poetry and two memoirs. Her first book of poems, ''Vesper Sparrows'', won the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Prize for Poetry. In 1997 Digges was awarded the

Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award The Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Awards are a pair of American prizes based at Claremont Graduate University. They are given to poets for their collections of poetry written in the English language, by a citizen or legal resident alien of the U ...

, the largest prize for a single work of poetry, for her book ''Rough Music''. She was also the winner of two

Pushcart Prize The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are ...

s. Digges translated the poems of the Cuban poet María Elena Cruz Varela. A book of poetry, ''The Wind Blows Through the Doors of My Heart: Poems'', was published by Knopf in 2010. Digges died April 10, 2009, in

Amherst, Massachusetts Amherst () is a city in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Connecticut River valley. Amherst has a council–manager form of government, and is considered a city under Massachusetts state law. Amherst is one of several Massach ...

. Her death was reported as a suicide following her fatal fall from the top of the bleachers of

Warren McGuirk Alumni Stadium Warren McGuirk Alumni Stadium, is a 17,000-seat multi-purpose stadium in Hadley, Massachusetts, on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. It has been the Massachusetts Minutemen football team's home stadium since 1965, with th ...

at the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a public land-grant research university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system and was founded in 1863 as the ...

Bibliography

Poetry * ''Vesper Sparrows'' (Atheneum Publishers, 1986) * ''Late In The Millennium'' (Knopf, 1989) * ''Rough Music'' (Random House, 1997) * ''Trapeze'' (Knopf, 2004) * ''The Wind Blows Through the Doors of My Heart: Poems'' (Knopf, 2010, posthumous) Memoirs * ''Fugitive Spring'' (Knopf, 1992) * ''The Stardust Lounge: Stories from a Boy's Adolescence'' (Anchor Books, 2001). Translation * ''Ballad of the Blood/Balada De La Sangre: The Poems of Maria Elena Cruz'' (

Ecco Press Ecco is a New York–based publishing imprint of HarperCollins. It was founded in 1971 by Daniel Halpern as an independent publishing company; Publishers Weekly described it as "one of America's best-known literary houses." In 1999 Ecco was acquir ...

, 1997)

Honors and grants

* Delmore Schwartz Memorial Prize *

* Ingram Merrill Foundation grant *

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

grant *

John Simon Guggenheim Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation is a private foundation formed in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Gr ...

grant

Notes

References

External links

* Academy of American Poets
Deborah Digges

Faculty Bio at Tufts University

* ttps://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/arts/17digges.html Deborah Digges, Poet Who Channeled Struggles, Dies at 59, The New York Times, April 16, 2009
Tufts mourns acclaimed poet, professor, Boston Globe, April 14, 2009

Deborah Digges dies at 59; distinguished poet and memoirist, LA Times, April 27, 2009

Correspondence with Gerald Stern
{{DEFAULTSORT:Digges, Deborah 1950 births 2009 suicides 2009 deaths American women poets Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni University of Missouri alumni University of California, Riverside alumni Suicides by jumping in the United States 20th-century American poets 20th-century American women writers Suicides in Massachusetts