David Ray (poet)

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David Ray (May 20, 1932 – August 8, 2024) was an American poet and author of fiction, essays, and memoir. He was particularly noted for poems that, while being rooted in the personal, also show a strong social concern.

Ray was the author of twenty-two volumes of poetry, including "Hemingway: A Desperate Life" (2011), "When" (2007), "Music of Time: Selected and New Poems" (2006) and The Death of Sardanapalus and Other Poems of the Iraq Wars (2004). "After Tagore: Poems Inspired by Rabindranath Tagore" was published in India in 2008.

Ray taught at several colleges in the United States, including Cornell University, Reed College, the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where he was professor emeritus. He also taught in India, New Zealand, and Australia, and published books inspired by the cultures of each country.

Among other prizes, including an N.E.A. fellowship for fiction and five P.E.N. Newspaper Syndicate Awards for short stories, David Ray was a two-time winner of the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. Ray died on August 8, 2024, at the age of 92.^[1]