Maine-born poet Leo Connellan dies

NORWICH, Conn. – Maine native Leo Connellan, the poet laureate of Connecticut, died Thursday, a week after suffering a severe stroke.

Connellan, 72, died about 7:30 p.m. at William W. Backus Hospital, a hospital spokeswoman said. He had been in a coma since shortly after the stroke.

The poet, whose books include “Crossing America,” “Provincetown and Other Poems” and “The Clear Blue Lobster-Water Country,” had complained Feb. 15 of a headache and fatigue and was discovered late that night collapsed in a hallway.

Family members were with Connellan when he died. “It was very quick,” said his daughter, Amy Connellan. “He just decided it was time.”

Connellan was appointed in 1996 to a five-year term as the state’s official poet, the unanimous choice of a panel appointed by the Connecticut Commission on the Arts. He replaced James Merrill, who was the first to hold the largely honorary position and died in 1995.

Nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize, Connellan was described by poet Richard Wilbur as possessing “a credible compassion for [and identification with] the poor, the unlucky, the disesteemed.”

He was also poet-in-residence for the Connecticut State University system, a position he had held since 1987.

Born in Portland, Maine, on Nov. 30, 1928, Connellan was writing stories and poetry by age 8. He briefly attended the University of Maine, served in the Army then took a sales job with a typewriter supply company, rising to Eastern sales manager by the time the company went out of business in 1978.

In 1961 he returned to writing, working first at fiction but settling on poetry. He told The New York Times, “In searching for things to create, I was very dumb. I was not bright. Bright is Delmore Schwartz. Bright is Hart Crane. Someone like me has to work hard for every image.”