Biography

She was born Deborah Leah Sugarbaker in Jefferson City, Missouri

Jefferson City, Missouri

Jefferson City is the capital of the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Cole County. Located in Callaway and Cole counties, it is the principal city of the Jefferson City metropolitan area, which encompasses the entirety of both counties. As of the 2010 census, the population was 43,079...

, on February 6, 1950. Her father was a physican and her mother was a nurse; she was the sixth child in a family of ten children.

Digges received a Bachelor of Arts

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 degree from the University of California-Riverside in 1976, a Masters from the University of Missouri

University of Missouri

The University of Missouri System is a state university system providing centralized administration for four universities, a health care system, an extension program, five research and technology parks, and a publishing press. More than 64,000 students are currently enrolled at its four campuses...

 in 1982, and her M.F.A.

Master of Fine Arts

A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...

 in Poetry from the Iowa Writers Workshop in 1984. In the course of her academic career, she taught in the writing and English faculties of New York University

New York University

New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

, Boston University

Boston University

Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...

, Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, and Tufts University

Tufts University

Tufts University is a private research university located in Medford/Somerville, near Boston, Massachusetts. It is organized into ten schools, including two undergraduate programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in Massachusetts and on the eastern border of France...

.

She authored four books of poetry and two memoirs. Her first book of poems, Vesper Sparrows, won the Delmore Schwartz

Delmore Schwartz

Delmore Schwartz was an American poet and short story writer from Brooklyn, New York.-Biography:Schwartz was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. His parents, Harry and Rose, both Romanian Jews, separated when Schwartz was nine, and their divorce had a profound effect on him. Later, in 1930,...

 Memorial Prize for Poetry. In 1997 Digges was awarded the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the largest prize for a single work of poetry, for her book Rough Music. She was also the winner of two Pushcart Prize

Pushcart Prize

The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to nominate up to 6 works they have featured....

s. Digges translated the poems of the Cuban

Cubans

Cubans or Cuban people are the inhabitants or citizens of Cuba. Cuba is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...

 poet Maria Elena Cruz Varela. A book of poetry, The Wind Blows Through the Doors of My Heart: Poems, was published by Knopf in 2010.

Digges died April 10, 2009, in Amherst, Massachusetts

Amherst, Massachusetts

Amherst is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2010 census, the population was 37,819, making it the largest community in Hampshire County . The town is home to Amherst College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts...

. Her death was reported as a suicide following her fatal fall from the top of the bleachers of McGuirk Stadium

Warren McGuirk Alumni Stadium

Warren McGuirk Alumni Stadium is a 17,000-seat multi-purpose stadium in Hadley, Massachusetts on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. It was home to the UMass Minutemen football team through the 2011 season, and remains home to the UMass Minutewomen lacrosse team. The stadium is...

 at the University of Massachusetts

University of Massachusetts Amherst

The University of Massachusetts Amherst is a public research and land-grant university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States and the flagship of the University of Massachusetts system...

.

Honors and grants

• Delmore Schwartz
  Delmore Schwartz
  Delmore Schwartz was an American poet and short story writer from Brooklyn, New York.-Biography:Schwartz was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. His parents, Harry and Rose, both Romanian Jews, separated when Schwartz was nine, and their divorce had a profound effect on him. Later, in 1930,...
  
   Memorial Prize
• Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
• Ingram Merrill Foundation grant
• National Endowment for the Arts
  National Endowment for the Arts
  The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
  
   grant
• John Simon Guggenheim Foundation grant

External links

• Academy of American Poets: Deborah Digges
• Faculty Bio at Tufts University
• Two poems from Rough Music
• Video of Deborah Digges' reading on 3/9/09 at the Boston Court Theatre in Pasadena CA, as featured on Poetry.LA
• Deborah Digges, Poet Who Channeled Struggles, Dies at 59, The New York Times, April 16, 2009
• Tufts mourns acclaimed poet, professor, Boston Globe, April 14, 2009
• Deborah Digges dies at 59; distinguished poet and memoirist, LA Times, April 27, 2009