Tufts Mourns the Loss of Professor Deborah Digges

April 13, 2009

Dear Colleagues:

This weekend we learned of the death of our good friend and colleague Deborah Digges, Professor of English, distinguished author of two powerful memoirs, and a major American poet whose four published volumes won wide acclaim. We are in touch with her family and her students to offer them Tufts' support in this time of loss. The family is planning to hold a private funeral service; arrangements have not yet been made for a memorial service at Tufts. There will, however, be a tribute to Deborah on Wednesday, April 15, in the Coolidge Room at 5:30. Members of the community will be invited to share their memories of her or to read briefly from Deborah's poetry or from appropriate works that they, or others, have written.

Deborah was an unusually devoted teacher who had a great impact on those who studied with her. She shared with them, and with all of us, unique insights into literature and the creative process by which the experiences of a life may become art. Her poetry looked closely at the natural world, at family life, at the painful inevitability of loss and the constant surprise of joy. It did so without sentimentality, but always with a warmth and passion that enlivened the rigors of her intelligence. She demonstrated this capacious and generous imaginative gift in her four major collections of poems. Her first, Vesper Sparrows (1986), won the Delmore Schwartz Prize for the best first book of poetry. Critics agreed that she continued to grow artistically, and her third collection, Rough Music, won the Kingsley-Tufts Prize for best book of poetry published in 1995. Her poems regularly appeared in the most important journals (including The New Yorker) and authoritative anthologies, and she received major awards and fellowships from leading foundations in the arts and humanities. Also an accomplished writer of nonfiction, Deborah was the author of two powerful memoirs of family life. This semester, she was teaching two classes while working on another collection of poems, scheduled to be published this fall by Alfred A. Knopf. She was also doing research for an historical novel based on the life of Sarah Winchester. We are deeply saddened that her voice has been silenced too soon.

Deborah was not only a deeply committed writer and teacher but also an active member of the communities she cared about. Born and raised on an apple orchard in central Missouri, she was a passionate lover of animals and a shelter volunteer. She also traveled frequently to East Africa, where she worked with children at the Tumaini Orphanage at the foot of Mount Kenya.

Deborah's passing is a great loss for American poetry, but it is an especially painful loss for the Tufts community where we knew her not only as one of the outstanding creative visionaries in American poetry, but also as an inspiring teacher, a generous mentor, and a cherished friend.

Sincerely,

Lawrence Bacow
Jamshed Bharucha
Robert Sternberg
Vickie Sullivan
Lee Edelman

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	v 2009 Memos > A Short Homework Assignment > Tufts Distinction Awards 2009 > Update on the University Budget > Faculty and Staff Appreciation Concert > Union Organizing Efforts at Tufts > Tufts Mourns the Loss of Professor Deborah Digges > Reflections on the Lewis Hall Incident > The Somerville-Tufts Partnership > Bernard M. Gordon Gift > The Outlook for 2009-10 at Tufts > President's Marathon Challenge 2010	Home » Community Memos » 2009 Memos » Tufts Mourns the Loss of Professor Deborah Digges Tufts Mourns the Loss of Professor Deborah Digges April 13, 2009 Dear Colleagues: This weekend we learned of the death of our good friend and colleague Deborah Digges, Professor of English, distinguished author of two powerful memoirs, and a major American poet whose four published volumes won wide acclaim. We are in touch with her family and her students to offer them Tufts' support in this time of loss. The family is planning to hold a private funeral service; arrangements have not yet been made for a memorial service at Tufts. There will, however, be a tribute to Deborah on Wednesday, April 15, in the Coolidge Room at 5:30. Members of the community will be invited to share their memories of her or to read briefly from Deborah's poetry or from appropriate works that they, or others, have written. Deborah was an unusually devoted teacher who had a great impact on those who studied with her. She shared with them, and with all of us, unique insights into literature and the creative process by which the experiences of a life may become art. Her poetry looked closely at the natural world, at family life, at the painful inevitability of loss and the constant surprise of joy. It did so without sentimentality, but always with a warmth and passion that enlivened the rigors of her intelligence. She demonstrated this capacious and generous imaginative gift in her four major collections of poems. Her first, Vesper Sparrows (1986), won the Delmore Schwartz Prize for the best first book of poetry. Critics agreed that she continued to grow artistically, and her third collection, Rough Music, won the Kingsley-Tufts Prize for best book of poetry published in 1995. Her poems regularly appeared in the most important journals (including The New Yorker) and authoritative anthologies, and she received major awards and fellowships from leading foundations in the arts and humanities. Also an accomplished writer of nonfiction, Deborah was the author of two powerful memoirs of family life. This semester, she was teaching two classes while working on another collection of poems, scheduled to be published this fall by Alfred A. Knopf. She was also doing research for an historical novel based on the life of Sarah Winchester. We are deeply saddened that her voice has been silenced too soon. Deborah was not only a deeply committed writer and teacher but also an active member of the communities she cared about. Born and raised on an apple orchard in central Missouri, she was a passionate lover of animals and a shelter volunteer. She also traveled frequently to East Africa, where she worked with children at the Tumaini Orphanage at the foot of Mount Kenya. Deborah's passing is a great loss for American poetry, but it is an especially painful loss for the Tufts community where we knew her not only as one of the outstanding creative visionaries in American poetry, but also as an inspiring teacher, a generous mentor, and a cherished friend. Sincerely, Lawrence Bacow Jamshed Bharucha Robert Sternberg Vickie Sullivan Lee Edelman
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