Ed Ochester Retires as Pittsburgh's Poetry Point Person

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A toast to Ed Ochester, to whose retirement we raise our glasses in celebration of his editorial achievement (and poeitc prowess). As director of Pitt Poetry, Ed Ochester has published some of our most consequential poets displaying an ecumenicism of taste sharpened by high intellect, wit, and an ear for the language as spoken. The University of Pittsburgh has released the statement abridged here:

We are at once happy and sad to announce the retirement of our beloved poetry editor, Ed Ochester. Ochester has been the series editor and creative force behind the Pitt Poetry Series of the University of Pittsburgh Press since 1978 and published hundreds of collections by established and rising poets.

Ochester became a driving force of American poetry, working with such poets as Billy Collins, Etheridge Knight, Toi Derricotte, Larry Levis, Sharon Olds, Denise Duhamel, Lynn Emanuel, Tomas Transtomer, Gregory Orr, J. Allyn Rosser, David Wojahn, Kate Daniels, Alicia Ostriker, Jim Daniels, Andrei Codrescu, Adrienne Su, Dean Young, and David Lehman. 

In addition to Ochester’s work selecting and editing collections for the Pitt Poetry Series, he established the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize in 1981, one of the premier prizes for a first full-length book of poems. He was also the editor for the Drue Heinz Literature Prize for many years.

Ochester is professor emeritus of English at the University of Pittsburgh and is on the faculty of the Bennington College MFA Writing Seminars. In 2001, Ochester received Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's Creative Achievement Award. Ochester has twice served as president of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs, where he received the George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature in 2006. He is the author of numerous poetry collections, including Sugar Run Road, Unreconstructed: Poems Selected and New, and The Republic of Lies, and was editor of American Poetry Now.

The University of Pittsburgh Press is actively seeking Ochester’s successor. You can read more about the Pitt Poetry Series here.
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Comments

[Terence Winch]

I'm sorry to see him depart from this job, at which he obviously excels.