Background
Hugo, Richard Franklin was born on December 21, 1923 in Seattle, Washington, United States. Son of Franklin James and Esther Clara (Monk) Hogan.
Hugo, Richard Franklin was born on December 21, 1923 in Seattle, Washington, United States. Son of Franklin James and Esther Clara (Monk) Hogan.
In 1952 in Creative Writing from the University of Washington where he studied under Theodore Roethke.
Foreign the English composer, see Richard Hygons. Primarily a regionalist, Hugo"s work reflects the economic depression of the Northwest, particularly Montana. He served in World World War II as a bombardier in the Mediterranean.
He left the service in 1945 after flying 35 combat missions and reaching the rank of first lieutenant.
Hugo received his Bachelor of Arts in 1948 and his Master of Arts In 1961 his first book of poems, A Run of Jacks, was published. Soon after he took a creative writing teaching job at the University of Montana.
He later became the head of the creative writing program there. He published five more books of poetry, a memoir, a highly respected book on writing, and also a mystery novel.
His posthumous book of collected poetry, Making Certain lieutenant Goes On, evinces that his poems are marked by crisp, gorgeous images of nature that often stand in contrast to his own depression, loneliness, and alcoholism.
Although almost always written in free verse, his poems have a strong sense of rhythm that often echoes iambic meters. He also wrote of large number of informal epistolary poems at a time when that form was unfashionable. Hugo’s The Real West Marginal Way is a collection of essays, generally autobiographical in nature, that detail his childhood, his military service, his poetics, and his teaching.
Hugo remarried in 1974 to Ripley Schemm Hansen.
In 1977, he was named the editor of the Yale Younger Poets Series. Hugo died of leukemia on October 22, 1982.
Richard Hugo House is named after Hugo.
Served with Air Corps Army of the United States, 1943-1945.
Married Margaret Ripley Schamm, July 12, 1974.