Owen Dodson was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1914. He is the author of three poetry collections: Powerful Long Ladder (1940), The Confession Stone: Song Cycles (1970), and The Harlem Book of the Dead (1978). He also wrote more than 35 plays and opera libretti, as well as two novels, Boy at the Window (1951) and Come Home Early, Child (1967). Dodson was a professor at Spelman College, Atlanta University, and finally at Howard University, where he served as the chair of the drama department for three decades. He died in 1983.
Audio Recordings of Owen Dodson
- Owen Dodson reading his poems with comment in the Recording Laboratory, Dec. 13, 1960
- As part of Poetry in English at the Library of Congress, Lucille Clifton and Owen Dodson reading and discussing their poems in the Coolidge Auditorium, Mar. 26, 1973