Gloria Oden (October 30, 1923—February 2012) earned a BA in 1944 and a JD in 1948 from Howard University. She never practiced law, instead working for the Federal government before moving to New York City in 1951 to work for the National Infantile Paralysis Foundation. From 1961 to 1978, Oden served in editorial positions for academic journals such as the American Journal of Physics, and the journal of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. She returned to the region in 1971 to teach at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, where she remained until her retirement in 1996.
Oden’s books of poetry are The Naked Frame: A Love Poem and Sonnets (1952), Resurrections (1979), The Ties that Bind (1980), Appearances (2003), and the limited-edition chapbook Homage (2011), reprinted in its entirety here. Oden wrote that Homage was “a rumination on early families of the first decade of the twentieth century who, following in the hopes of their forbears, labored to have their children enjoy the rights and privileges of this new Jerusalem, the United States.”
To read more about this author:
“Smoke in a House on Fire: A Profile of Gloria Oden” by Julia A. Galbus
