Geraldine Clinton Little
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Geraldine Clinton Little (September 20, 1923 - March 7, 1997) was an Irish-born poet who spent her life in the United States. She published ten books, and her stories and poems appeared in over 400 journals.
Obituary
Geraldine C. Little, 73, a nationally known and honored writer whose published works include eight volumes of poetry, died on Friday, March 7, 1997 at her Mount Holly, NJ home from congestive heart failure caused by amyloidosis, a form of protein aggregation.
Born in Northern Ireland, she was the sixth child of an Irish Methodist minister, the Rev. James Robert Clinton who came to the United States in 1925. He was the Senior minister of the Central Congregational Church in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia for many years.
Mrs. Little moved to Mount Holly, NJ in 1956 with her husband Robert K Little, well known inventor and President and CEO of RKL Controls, Inc., of Lumberton, NJ.
Her final book, Woman in a Special House, a collection of 18 short stories, was published just one month before her death by Fithian Press.
Her career as a poet, fiction writer, playwright, and college instructor started late in life, after she graduated from Goddard College in Vermont in 1970. She completed her bachelor's degree in English while raising three sons who were in high school at the time. She received her master's degree from Trenton State College, now the College of New Jersey, in 1977.
"She just kept going like the Energizer bunny," said Charles Swannell, an associate professor of English and speech at Burlington County College. "She almost constantly was reinventing what she was doing. She sang; she wrote; she talked; and she taught. Her teaching was almost like a performance."
Her poetry went from haiku verse — a short Japanese verse form — to book-length poems, including "Hakugai" which "gives voice" to the 110,000 Japanese-Americans interned in prison camps during World War II, according to a 1984 review. It said, "Through dramatic monologues, snatches of conversation and journal notes, the prisoners lost words are heard again. The world of their hakugai [persecution] is resurrected."
Perhaps her best known work was a play, Heloise and Abelard, written in 1989. It was produced off-Broadway in 1990 by Edgar Lansbury, Angela Lansbury's brother and, later, locally by the Foundation Theater at Burlington County College, among others.
Asked if she had a favorite work, she would give a unique answer. She would say, 'No. Your poems are like your children — you don't pick favorites.'
Poet Karen Swenson, winner of the 1993 National Poetry Series award, recalled that Mrs. Little's works stood out because of their "unusual clarity and precision of form... and were full of wonderful imagery."
Mrs. Little won numerous awards for her work over the years, including six national awards from the Poetry Society of America. In 1996, she was honored with an award from a Japanese city for her haiku writing. She was a past president of the Haiku Society of America and a past vice president of Poetry Society of America.
She was an adjunct instructor in writing and English literature at Burlington County College for more than a decade and had previously taught at Rutgers and Trenton State College. She was well known for her appearances at writing conferences and as a lecturer for adults as well as children.
She also sang, and her singing career included performing with the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, the major coral group associated with the Philadelphia Orcastra. Her son recalled, "She really loved her singing. She sang with the group until about six months before her death. She could hardly walk but was still there singing."
Mrs. Little also sang for the choir of the First Presbyterian Church of Moorestown, NJ.
She had three sons, Rory, of San Francisco, CA, Tim, of Pemberton, NJ, and Rodney, of Peachtree City, GA; five grandchildren; and two serviving sisters, Hilda Greene Perkins and Ailsa Muldoon.
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