Some time after Marty Silverthorne’s death, Marsha Warren, former executive director of the NC Writers’ Network, emailed me about how sad she felt, having so many NC writers we knew having passed recently, and she listed a number of them. This led me to wonder if anyone had compiled such a list, so when I saw NCPS historian Carolyn York at a reading, I asked her if she knew. (I was thinking only of poets, not all NC writers, which would have been a more formidable task.) She said she thought it was a good idea, so I thought, why don’t I start?
I did several internet searches and found some names, including at https://www.ncpedia.org/poetry with links to their work and brief bios, but the list was out of date. I also looked through anthologies, including Sally Buckner’s Word and Witness and sent my initial list to several poets I’ve known for decades to see if they had other names to add. Some on this list are well-known, others less so, some perhaps did more teaching or nonprofit work than publication. I did not have a criterion, other than that everyone was considered a poet and had published works, as I wanted to be as inclusive as possible. If I could not find an obituary for someone born after 1920, I did not include the name unless someone told me they knew the person had passed.
As I worked on the list, I thought that it would be a beautiful tribute to have an open mic where people read a poem from a poet who has passed. This led me to discover that there was a national movement in 2010 called the first National Dead Poets Remembrance Day, for remembrances/readings of dead poets held on the death date of Edgar Allan Poe, Oct. 7.
Several readings happened in NC that year. Alex Albright hosted one at Fountain near Greenville. He wrote in the Fountain’s newsletter that “Shelby Stephenson will read poems by Sam Ragan and Paul Green. Wilson-based poet Jim Clark will perform poems by Byron Herbert Reece set to original music composed by Clark. Lightnin’ Wells will read poems by George Moses Horton and perform songs by Piedmont blues poets Blind Boy Fuller and the Rev. Gary Davis. Others have committed to read poems by A. R. Ammons, Jonathan Williams, Randall Jarrell, and Rocky Mount’s William Boyd.” Residents in Raleigh read at the grave of Theophilus Hunter Hill. (There’s a video by Cari Grindem-Corbett: https://deadpoets.typepad.com/dead_poets_of_north_carol/).
I hope those reading this list might be inspired to revive this tradition. If you know of other poets not on the list who deserve mention, please email me.
Debra Kaufman
NC poets who have passed on (as of 1/27/24):
Abbott, Anthony
Abernethy, Arthur Talmadge (1st poet laureate, 1948-53)
Ammons, A.R.
Angelou, Maya
Atkins, Stewart
Barrax, Gerald
Bartlett, Paul
Bayes, Ronald Homer
Beecher, John
Bevington, Helen Smith
Blackburn, William
Blackstock, Walter
Bolton, Elizabeth
Boner, John Henry
Boyd, James
Brawley, Eleanor D.
Brockman, Zoe Kincaid
Buckner, Sally
Byer, Katherine Stripling (5th poet laureate, 2005-09)
Campbell, Mary Belle
Chappell, Fred (4th poet laureate; 1997-2002; co-founder, Gilbert Chappell Series)
Chestnutt, Charles
Clark, James L.
Cotten, Sally Southall
Councilman, Emily Sargent
Crisp, Lucy Cherry
Dargan, Olive Tilford
Davis, Burke
DiSanto, Grace
Doar, Harriet
Dykeman, Wilma
Eaton, Charles Edward
Fuller, Edwin Wiley
Garner, Edward R.
Gay, James
Gibson, Grace
Gilbert, Marie (co-founder, Gilbert-Chappell Series)
Green, Paul
Gregg, E. S.
Gurkin, Kathryn
Hale, Ellen Johnston
Hanes, Frank Borden
Hanson, Howard Gordon
Heffernan, Thomas
Hewitt, Andrew
Hill, Theophilus Hunter
Hinton, Leon
Hoagland, Tony
Hogan, Judy
Horton, George Moses
Huff, Muriel
Hughes, Gladys
Hulme, Francis Pledger
Inman, Will
Jackson, Joel
James, Michael
Jarrell, Randall
Jones, H. G.
Kleppel, Placid Dom
Lader, Bruce
Lambert, Jane
Lanier, H. Glen
Liner, Amon
Lyman, Mitchell
Macleod, Norman
Makuck, Peter
Manning, David
McCurdy, Harold Grier
McDill, Thomas H.
McDonald, Agnes
McGirt, James
McNeill, John Charles
Medley, Mary Louise
Miller, Jim Wayne
Moore, Laura S.
Myers, Susan Laughter
Newman, Paul Baker
Nixon, Sally
Olson, Charles
Owen, Guy
Payne, Anne Blackwell
Pearson, James Larkin (2nd poet laureate, 1953-81)
Petersen, Keith S.
Piephoff, Bruce
Pierce, Ovid
Pipkin, John Moses
Price, Merle
Price, Reynolds
Rabb, Margaret
Ragan, Sam (3rd poet laureate, 1982-2002)
Ray, Neil
Reddy, T. J.
Rhodes, William Henry
Robinson, Lucia Walton
Rudder, Virginia L.
Rust, Rebecca Ball
Salinger, Herman
Sandburg, Carl
Sewell, Elizabeth
Shackleford, Ruby P.
Shull, Lena Marie
Silverthorne, Marty
Skold, Walter
Sledd, Benjamin
Small, Victor R.
Smith-Soto, Mark
Snotherly, Mary
Sprunt, William III
Stem, Thad Jr.
Stewart, Annarah L.
Still, James
Stockard, Henry Jerome
Summerow, Dorothy Edwards
Swansea, Charleen
Tabory, Jean
Tabory, Max
Talley, Edna Wilcox
Taylor, Eleanor Ross
Thomas, Hazel
Thomas, Kate Kelly
Thompson, Valjeanne Jeffers
Wallace, Alice Toporoff
Wallace, Rudy W.
Walser, Richard
Walters, Thomas N.
Watson, Robert
West, John Foster
Whitsett, William Thornton
Wicker, Nina
Williams, Jonathan
Wilson, Sidney Ann
Woods Bell, Mae
Wooten, Anna
Young, Charlotte
Zuber, Isabel