Thomas Thackeray Swinburne

Thomas Thackeray Swinburne (April 21, 1865 – December 17, 1926) was an American poet from Rochester, New York. He has been called "Rochester's poet laureate"[1] He wrote a number of books of verse which he printed himself; one of these By the Genesee: Rhymes and Verses contains a version of the poem which has become the unofficial alma mater of the University of RochesterThe Genesee.[2]

Swinburne attended the University of Rochester as a member of the class of 1892, but never graduated.[3] He was a member of Theta Delta Chi fraternity.[4]

One critic compared Swinburne and Rochester in Song and Verse to Edgar Lee Masters and his Spoon River Anthology.[5]

In 1926, distraught over the death of his sister Rose, to whom he had dedicated By the Genesee and Rochester in Song and Verse, he committed suicide by jumping from a bridge into the Genesee River.[3][6]

The University of Rochester and the Rochester community honored Swinburne with a memorial, Swinburne Rock, placed "beside the Genesee" near the University's Interfaith Chapel. The memorial, proposed in 1927 and dedicated in 1933, is a 26 ton glacial boulder holding a bronze plaque with verses from The Genesee sculpted by Alphonse A. Kolb.[5][7][8]

Books

References

  1. Shilling, Donovan. "An Ode to the Genesee". Retrieved Dec 17, 2013.
  2. Swinburne, Thomas T. (1900). By the Genesee: Rhymes and Verses.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Slater, John R. "Tom Swinburne, Poet-Philosopher of the Genesee". Rochester Review. Retrieved Dec 17, 2013.
  4. University of Rochester (1911). General Catalogue of the University of Rochester, 1850-1911.
  5. 5.0 5.1 "College Friends Will Dedicate Memorial to Thomas T. Swinburne" (PDF). Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. December 17, 1927. Retrieved Dec 26, 2013.
  6. "Poet of Genesee suicides". Reading (PA) Eagle. Dec 19, 1926. Retrieved Dec 17, 2013.
  7. University of Rochester. "The Swinburne Rock". Landmarks. Retrieved Dec 17, 2013.
  8. "Thomas Thackeray Swinburne". Rochester's Hope. Retrieved Dec 17, 2013.

External links


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