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Vol. LXIV, No. 10
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
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Vol. LXIV, No. 10
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
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Omar Shakespear Pound, 83, of Princeton, died peacefully March 2 at the Merwick Care Center after a long illness. He was a teacher, editor, translator, and poet.
Born in 1926 in Paris, he grew up in England, attending Charterhouse School. During World War II, he survived bombing during the Blitz in London and then in 1945 joined the U.S. Army, serving in France and Germany. He was demobilized in the U.S.
He enrolled at Hamilton College with the class of 1951, but before completing his studies spent time in France, England, and Iran. He studied at the School of Oriental & African Studies in London and the University of Tehran, returning to the U.S. by way of Pakistan, India, and Japan. He graduated from Hamilton in 1954 and then went on to study at the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University. In 1955, he married Elizabeth Parkin of Montreal.
Mr. Pound taught at the Roxbury Latin School in Boston for five years before becoming Director of the American School of Tangier in Morocco in 1962. With their two daughters, the Pounds moved to Dorset, England in 1965 and then to Cambridge, where Mr. Pound taught at the Cambridgeshire College of Arts & Technology. In 1980, the family moved to Princeton, where Mr. Pound focused on writing, editing, and teaching English composition part-time at the University from the mid-1980s to 1992.
His poetry was published in various volumes including The Dying Sorcerer (1985), Pissle and the Holy Grail (1987), and Poems Inside and Out (1999), as well in as many small magazines. In his translations, which included the volume Arabic and Persian Poems and a 14th century Persian satirical fable Gorby and the Rats, he wrote that his aim was “a readable poem and a rediscovery.” He co-edited three volumes of literary correspondence and a bibliography of the writer and artist Wyndham Lewis. He was a founding trustee of the Wyndham Lewis Memorial Trust.
Son of the late Ezra & Dorothy (nee Shakespear) Pound, he is survived by his wife, Elizabeth; two daughters, Katherine Pound of St. Paul, Minn. and Oriana Pound of London, UK; and two grandsons.
To extend condolences online, visit http://memorialwebsites.legacy.com/OmarSPound/homepage.aspx
Mary Buxton Ward of Princeton died March 2 in the University Medical Center at Princeton. She was born in Melrose, Massachusetts in 1929.
In the 1950s she served with the State Department in embassies in Libya, Panama, and Hong Kong. Returning to the States, she lived in Florida, North Carolina, and California before moving to New Jersey in the late 1960s. For 16 years, she was with the Princeton Art Association, acting as Executive Director for the last ten of those years. Resigning from that position, she served the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament as secretary and assistant director for six years. She retired in 2004 from the University Medical Center at Princeton after 20 years in various capacities.
An activist, she was jailed several times over the years for her activities in support of civil rights, withdrawal from Vietnam, and nuclear disarmament. Her protest against nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site in 1986 resulted in a five-day jail sentence. Her civil rights activities are mentioned in Joan Morrison’s book, From Camelot to Kent State.
During her years in Princeton, she served on the boards of Nuclear Dialogue, Coalition for Peace Action, Federated Art Associations of New Jersey, Teamwork Dance, and, for six years as a volunteer member and advisory council member of the court-appointed Child Placement Review Board of Mercer County. For many years she also volunteered with Centurion Ministries, a prisoner advocacy group for those unjustly convicted; and served on the board of the Center for Family, Community and Social Justice.
Married twice, she is survived by two daughters, Shelley Rhodes of Upper Black Eddy, Pa. and Heather Ward of Columbus, Ohio; two sisters, Jane Donahue and Barbara Conrad; a brother, Raymond Buxton; and two grandsons.
Memorial contributions may be sent to Covenant House, 461 Eighth Street, New York, N.Y. 10001; or to Trinity Counseling Services, 22 Stockton Street, Princeton 08540.
Private services are under the direction of the Kimble Funeral Home, Princeton.
To extend condolences online or sign the guest book, visit www.thekimblefuneralhome.com.