About Anthony Ostroff
Anthony Ostroff, was an American poet, teacher and antiwar activist. He was professor of humanities at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, where he had taught since 1969. Earlier, he was professor of rhetoric at the University of California at Berkeley. During his 20 years at Berkeley, he became one of the first American intellectuals who devoted time to what Dr. John Brown, Lewis and Clark's dean of faculty, called “the realities of our involvement in the war in Vietnam.” Mr Ostroff was involved with the National Faculty Campaign Against the Nuclear Shelter Program, the Vietnam Commencement, Young Voters for Peace and the Citizens Commission to the Paris Peace Talks.Despite more than a quarter?century as a teacher. Mr. Ostroff was best known as a poet. His first book of verse, published in 1962, was “Imperatives.” His last, published last year was “A Fall in Mexico.” He also edited “The Contemporary Poet as Artist and Critic: Eight Symposia.”
The poet Muriel Rukeyser called Mr. Ostroff a “poetry?struck man.” Stanley Kunitz, the Pulitzer Prize?winning poet, said “A Fall in Mexico” was a “powerful book… with a cohesive theme and momentum and landscape that magnifies its poetic force.” And James Dickey credited Mr. Ostroff with a “great range, fine technique and a sure word sense.” He died after a heart attack that followed a hang?gliding flight over the Oregon coast. Mr. Ostroff was 54 years old and lived in Portland.
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