IRA MATH­UR

March and April are brit­tle, dry months. The days stretch, cracked and dusty, un­til colour in­trudes sharply—a burst of bougainvil­lea’s red, the sud­den gold of poui blooms.

Be­tween heat and dust, some­thing deep­er stirs, the spir­it awok­en by over­lap­ping fes­ti­vals: Holi’s bright chaos, Eid’s qui­et in­tro­spec­tion, and Bap­tist chants ring­ing fierce­ly in lib­er­a­tion. Soon, East­er, in April, promis­es re­new­al from the shad­ow of sac­ri­fice. At this lay­ered junc­ture, where cel­e­bra­tion meets solem­ni­ty, we turn to the re­strained yet pow­er­ful voice of Glo­ria Oden, a po­et whose work med­i­tates qui­et­ly, deeply, on death and re­birth, loss and re­silience.

Born on Oc­to­ber 30, 1923, in Yonkers, New York, Glo­ria Cather­ine Oden was the youngest of six daugh­ters to a min­is­ter in the African Methodist Epis­co­pal Zion Church and a col­lege-ed­u­cat­ed moth­er. Her up­bring­ing was steeped in ed­u­ca­tion and re­li­gious prac­tice, with ear­ly ex­po­sure to po­et­ry through mem­o­ri­sa­tion and recita­tion. This foun­da­tion in Protes­tant hymns and struc­tured verse would lat­er in­flu­ence her po­et­ic form and themes.

Oden pur­sued high­er ed­u­ca­tion at Howard Uni­ver­si­ty, earn­ing a Bach­e­lor of Arts in 1944 and a Ju­ris Doc­tor in 1948. De­spite her le­gal train­ing, she chose not to prac­tise law, in­stead ded­i­cat­ing her life to po­et­ry and acad­e­mia. Her pro­fes­sion­al jour­ney in­clud­ed roles in gov­ern­ment ser­vice and ed­i­to­r­i­al po­si­tions for aca­d­e­m­ic jour­nals such as the Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Physics and the Jour­nal of the In­sti­tute of Elec­tri­cal and Elec­tron­ics En­gi­neers.

In 1969, she be­gan teach­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land, Bal­ti­more Coun­ty (UM­BC), where she in­flu­enced a gen­er­a­tion of writ­ers un­til her re­tire­ment in 1996.

Oden’s lit­er­ary cir­cle was both di­verse and in­flu­en­tial. She stud­ied un­der po­ets like Ki­mon Fri­ar, Louise Bo­gan, and Léonie Adams and main­tained as­so­ci­a­tions with lit­er­ary fig­ures, in­clud­ing Ar­na Bon­temps, Robert Hay­den, Mar­i­anne Moore, Eliz­a­beth Bish­op, and Langston Hugh­es. Her friend­ship with Hugh­es was par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant, marked by late-night phone calls and ex­changes of work.

De­spite her con­nec­tions, Oden of­ten felt her po­et­ry was over­looked be­cause it did not con­form to the ex­pect­ed themes of Black po­et­ry at the time. She be­lieved that while she could nev­er for­get she was Black, her re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as a po­et was to reach all Amer­i­cans, stat­ing, “The Ne­gro in the Unit­ed States is not African. He is Amer­i­can.”

Her po­et­ic oeu­vre is marked by col­lec­tions that delve in­to per­son­al and uni­ver­sal themes. Her first book, The Naked Frame (1952), is a se­ries of love po­ems and son­nets that show­case her lyri­cal prowess and mas­tery of form. The col­lec­tion re­ceived favourable re­views, in­clud­ing one from crit­ic J Saun­ders Red­ding in the Afro-Amer­i­can (Bal­ti­more).

Tragedy pro­found­ly shaped her lat­er work. In Au­gust 1974, Oden’s moth­er and el­dest sis­ter were mur­dered in their Wash­ing­ton, DC, home—a crime that re­mains un­solved. This dev­as­tat­ing event led to Res­ur­rec­tions (1978), a col­lec­tion of 49 po­ems that nav­i­gate the depths of grief, mem­o­ry, and the search for mean­ing amidst loss.

Crit­ic Jascha Kessler praised the work, not­ing, “It is sim­ply won­der­ful, I think, that Glo­ria Oden prais­es life and love in po­ems in­ter­wo­ven with an op­pres­sive past.”

In Res­ur­rec­tions, Oden em­ploys for­mal me­tre, pre­dom­i­nant­ly iambic, to con­vey the weight of her sor­row and the re­silience re­quired to move for­ward. Her po­em “A Ges­ture To­ward My Moth­er” re­flects this bal­ance:

“I can­not find the grave,

though I have walked

the rows, the names,

seek­ing the stone

that is hers alone.”

This verse en­cap­su­lates the dis­ori­en­ta­tion of loss and the yearn­ing for con­nec­tion that per­me­ates the col­lec­tion.

Her sub­se­quent work, The Ties That Bind (1980), serves as a memo­r­i­al to her fa­ther, ex­plor­ing themes of fa­mil­ial du­ty and de­vo­tion. The col­lec­tion is struc­tured around the days of the week, de­tail­ing her fa­ther’s rou­tine and the pro­found im­pact of his pres­ence. The open­ing lines set the tone:

“With child­hood’s eye I see him:

En­throned up­on his pul­pit, he sits

Be­tween his dea­cons in Pen­te­costal trin­i­ty;

in the sober el­e­gance of serge.”

These lines con­vey a child’s rev­er­ence and the last­ing im­print of pa­ter­nal guid­ance.

In Ap­pear­ances (2004), pub­lished when Oden was 81, she adopts a more per­son­al and in­tro­spec­tive ap­proach. The col­lec­tion de­parts from strict for­mal­ism, em­brac­ing free verse to ex­plore love, age­ing, and self-per­cep­tion. In “A Small Step,” she con­fronts so­ci­etal judge­ments:

“The woman my hus­band chose

not to mar­ry ex­plic­it­ly

in­formed me I was not

very at­trac­tive. If

she thought that was news,

she was fool­ish­ly mis­tak­en.”

—Wikipedia

This can­did re­flec­tion un­der­scores Oden’s evolv­ing po­et­ic voice—un­flinch­ing and self-as­sured.

Oden’s po­et­ry res­onates deeply dur­ing Trinidad’s sea­son of spir­i­tu­al re­flec­tion and re­new­al. Her ex­plo­ration of grief and heal­ing mir­rors the themes of death and res­ur­rec­tion cen­tral to the fes­ti­vals of Holi, Eid, Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day, and East­er. Her work does not of­fer facile com­fort but in­vites read­ers to con­front loss, en­dure its si­lence, and find so­lace in the sub­tle re­turn of life.

Glo­ria Oden passed away on De­cem­ber 16, 2011, leav­ing a lega­cy of po­et­ic ex­cel­lence that con­tin­ues to in­spire. Her dis­ci­plined craft and emo­tion­al depth serve as a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of po­et­ry to nav­i­gate the com­plex­i­ties of hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence.

Glo­ria Oden’s po­et­ic jour­ney was marked by per­son­al re­silience and a com­mit­ment to ex­plor­ing pro­found themes through her verse. Her de­but col­lec­tion, The Naked Frame: A Love Po­em and Son­nets (1952), was pub­lished by Ex­po­si­tion Press, show­cas­ing her ear­ly mas­tery of form and emo­tion.

The deeply per­son­al Res­ur­rec­tions (1978), a re­sponse to the trag­ic loss of her moth­er and sis­ter, was brought forth by Oli­vant Press, as was her sub­se­quent work, The Ties That Bind (1980), which delved in­to fa­mil­ial bonds and her fa­ther’s in­flu­ence.

Lat­er in her ca­reer, Ap­pear­ances (2004) was pub­lished by SARU Press In­ter­na­tion­al, re­flect­ing her con­tin­ued evo­lu­tion as a po­et. Her fi­nal col­lec­tion, Homage (2011), served as a praise song for small Black church­es in Amer­i­ca, en­cap­su­lat­ing her en­dur­ing rev­er­ence for cul­tur­al and spir­i­tu­al her­itage.

Be­yond her pub­lished works, Oden’s lega­cy in­cludes her tenure as an Eng­lish pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land, Bal­ti­more Coun­ty (UM­BC), where she in­flu­enced a gen­er­a­tion of writ­ers and thinkers. Her pa­pers, housed at UM­BC, of­fer in­sight in­to her schol­ar­ly pur­suits and per­son­al re­flec­tions. Oden’s po­et­ry, char­ac­terised by its dis­ci­plined craft and emo­tion­al depth, con­tin­ues to res­onate, of­fer­ing read­ers a lens through which to ex­plore themes of grief, love, and re­new­al.

Her work is a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of lan­guage to nav­i­gate the com­plex­i­ties of the hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence, en­sur­ing her place in the canon of Amer­i­can lit­er­a­ture.

Ira Math­ur is a Guardian Me­dia jour­nal­ist and the win­ner of the 2023 OCM Bo­cas Prize for Non-Fic­tion for her mem­oir, Love The Dark Days.

Au­thor in­quiries: iras­room@gmail.com