Owen Dodson collection

1943-1984

Owen Dodson was a poet, novelist, playwright, and educator who influenced the course of African American drama. Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1914, he received a Bachelor's degree from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University with the writing of the play Divine Comedy (1938).

Dodson wrote the novels Come Home Early, Child (1977) and Boy at the Window (1951), and books of poetry including The Harlem Book of the Dead and Powerful Long Ladder. His plays, totaling fifteen and including Divine Comedyy, Garden of Time, and Bayou Legend, among others, were more akin to poetic dramas than to plays. His short story, "The Summer Five", won a Paris Review award.

Teaching at Atlanta University, Hampton Institute, and Spelman College, as well as serving in the U.S. Navy, helped prepare Dodson for the task that lay before him at Howard University in 1944, where he taught or worked with many contemporary successful African American actors. With two fellow professors, Dodson established Howard University as a primary source in African American theater. He remained at Howard as chairman of the Drama Department and poet in residence until he retired in 1969. Dodson lectured at colleges throughout the country and directed various colleges and repertory groups in major cities. In 1964, he was an advisory board member for the Harlem School of the Arts Community Theater. Dodson's death occurred in 1983.