Jonathan Aldrich

Jonathan Aldrich (January 22, 1936 – January 6, 2021) was an American poet and educator. He was the author of eight collections of poetry and several chapbooks. His collected poems, The Old World in His Arms, was published in 2021 by Wolfson Press. Biography Born in Boston, Aldrich was educated at Shady Hill School; Phillips Exeter Academy; Harvard College, where he won the Academy of American Poets Prize and the Lloyd McKim Garrison Prize for Poetry; and the Bread Loaf School of English, where he was a Robert Frost Scholar. He was the elder son of Bailey Aldrich, who served as a United States federal judge for more than 48 years. Jonathan Aldrich taught at Elmira College, Berea College, and (for 25 years) at the Maine College of Art. Aldrich grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and spent every August at the home of his grandparents in Tenants Harbor, Maine. His memories of his summers there form the basis for his poetic sequence Foam (2012). His grandfather was businessman and painter Talbot Bailey Aldrich, and his great-grandfather was notable 19th century writer and editor Thomas Bailey Aldrich.