University mourns death of English professor and renowned poet Ken Irby
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas community is remembering Ken Irby, a longtime English professor and poet who died July 30 at Lawrence Memorial Hospital. He was 79.
“I join the University of Kansas community in mourning the death of one of our professors whose teaching inspired students in our community and whose poetry touched readers around the world,” said Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little. “On behalf of the KU community, I extend my condolences to Professor Irby’s family, friends, colleagues and students.”
Irby, a 1958 KU alumnus, returned to KU in 1985, when he joined the English department and dedicated his scholarly career to studying and writing poetry while also teaching courses ranging from Freshman Composition to Studies in the Poetry of Whitman and Melville. He was promoted to the rank of full professor in 2012 and left teaching when his health no longer permitted
“He was stunning in his American Poets of the 20th Century class and really opened up (Ezra) Pound and H.D. for me in a way I would not have found on my own,” said Genna Sue Hibbs, one of Irby’s former students. “He made the maze of allusion penetrable, and he reminded you that poetry involved engaging all human experience.”
Irby’s poetry — once described as local, intimate and radiating love — was often associated with the Black Mountain Poets. Shortly before Irby’s death, close friends and colleagues read to him from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself” and Rainer Maria Rilke's “Duino Elegies,” the first book of poems he owned, as a 14-year-old.
“He was one of the great American poets of the late 20th century, which sounds like hyperbole, but there are a lot of great poets of the late 20th century — American and otherwise — who would second that opinion,” said Joe Harrington, professor of English. “His loss leaves a gaping hole in the Lawrence and U.S. poetry community, not to mention in our department. He was a delightful friend and esteemed colleague. My heart is heavy.”
Among the awards Irby received during his career was the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America in 2010, given to “a living American poet selected with reference to genius and need.”
His published works include nearly 30 books, chapbooks and broadsides, and more than 300 poems and works of prose. Irby also contributed photography to two books of Charles Olson’s writing.
Services will take place at a later date. For more information, contact Harrington by email.