Donald Allen

Who was Donald Allen?

Donald Merriam Allen was an influential editor, publisher, and translator of contemporary American literature. He is perhaps best known for his project The New American Poetry 1945-1960, among the several important anthologies of contemporary American innovative writing he made available to the public. Allen began his career, in part, as a translator. He was one of the first translators of French-Romanian Absurdist playwright Eugène Ionesco, and his 1958 volume Four Plays of Eugène Ionesco helped to introduce the playwright to American audiences in the 1960s.

Allen's impact as an editor, publisher, and friend to poets continued to be felt well into the 21st century. Along with editing work by Lew Welch, Allen edited Frank O'Hara, including the seminal Collected Poems and Selected Poems. He is referred to directly in O'Hara's "Personal Poem" which is in Lunch Poems, a book Allen also edited. O'Hara writes, in reference to a conversation he had with LeRoi Jones, "we don't like Lionel Trilling/we decide, we like Don Allen."