In her June memorial message to the College community on the passing of one of its most beloved faculty members, Provost and Dean of the Faculty Linda A. Bell described Saskia Hamilton as “sensitive and astute.” Though both are assumed requisites for any poet, Hamilton embodied them whether she was on or off campus.
Throughout much of her life (1967-2023), Hamilton was a dedicated and highly accomplished educator, editor, and poet, having authored four collections of poems by age 56. She was as inspired by other artists as they were inspired by her — enough to immortalize her in song, as singer-songwriter Ben Folds did in an eponymous 2010 tune about her.
For more than 20 years at Barnard as a professor, Hamilton helped students in the English Department expand their literary interests and curate their language. In 2018, she began her tenure as Vice Provost for Academic Programs and Curriculum. Even while battling a terminal illness, Hamilton continued to produce and publish beautiful poems. In fact, just three months after her death on June 7, her publisher, Graywolf Press, released her newest poetry collection, All Souls.
Completed and turned in to her publisher months before the time of her passing, All Souls speaks from the precipice of impending demise.
To pay homage to Hamilton’s life, Barnard hosted a memorial on November 1 with members of her family, literary colleagues, Barnard’s President Laura Rosenbury, and College faculty members. The recited poems and music had been chosen by Hamilton, such as Adam Zagajewski’s poem “Late Beethoven” and J.S. Bach’s Gigue from Partita No. 6. (Click here for the program.)
The following day, the College welcomed everyone back, along with Hamilton’s publisher as a co-presenter, for a celebratory reading of All Souls. Like much of her previous work, All Souls addressed fear, expectation, and memory as only Hamilton could — with deft creativity and lyricism.
Both events were co-presented by Barnard’s Office of the Provost, the English Department, and the Creative Writing Program.
“Among us, especially in the English Department, Saskia was most treasured as a great teacher,” said Christopher Baswell, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of English and film studies’ acting director.
Excerpt from “All Souls” courtesy of Graywolf Press
At Barnard, Hamilton helped to usher dozens of young creative writers through their process and achievements. One example of Hamilton’s commitment to young writers was that each year she served on the committee for the Axinn Foundation/Anna Quindlen Award for Creative Writing, which awarded a graduating Barnard senior $25,000 so they could focus on the craft of writing.
Hamilton’s impact also reached across Broadway, to where Kap Taylor CC’18 was a student. Today, Taylor teaches playwriting at UCLA. Upon learning that Hamilton was ill, Taylor wrote a letter to Hamilton sharing how the professor changed their life and “gave me a soul and eyes.”
“You are magic. You conjured a world I’d never felt before. No one in all of academia, or Hollywood, has revealed what you did in your classrooms. Divine, and a little too powerful, it is the closest to something greater I’ve ever been. Despite all of that, you led with a special kindness and no ego,” Taylor wrote. And Hamilton wrote back, from hospice care.
Taylor is not alone in praising the professor. Hamilton inspired many former students — Sadie Dupuis ’11, frontwoman for the indie band Speedy Ortiz, and New York Times bestselling cookbook author Julia Turshen ’07 — and other faculty members. She also directed Women Poets at Barnard, a free event series centered around emerging and established poets.
“In her final year, old friends and former students visited from around the world, from the West Coast, from Portugal, from New Zealand, England, Australia, the Netherlands,” said Baswell. “Her home became, briefly, almost a pilgrimage site for writers and poets, who arrived with a book, a sandwich, a quarter-hour’s conversation when Saskia’s energy permitted.”
"Saskia leaves a rich and living legacy that makes us all who knew her obliged to do our poor best to keep that legacy alive and allow it to seep into our very cells,” said Timea Széll ’75, senior lecturer in the English Department and longtime Barnard colleague. “She was — and is, I insist — an extraordinary human: kind, gentle, wise, down to earth, learned, and brilliant. I cherish her memory and her gorgeous poems. I miss her luminous smile."
Beyond the gates, Hamilton acquired a long list of awards and accolades for her way with words. Her book of poetry Corridor was named among the best poetry books of 2014 by critics at The New York Times and The New Yorker. And her work has been recognized by the Poetry Foundation’s Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism, the Modern Language Association’s Morton N. Cohen Award, and the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, to name a few.
Also present at Hamilton’s events was devoted friend and poet Catherine Barnett, who helped Hamilton edit All Souls. Barnett, who often teaches poetry at Barnard, had also shared an office with Hamilton. “It has been a great fortune, for those of us here at Barnard who knew Saskia and for those of us from elsewhere — from her punk rock bandmates in D.C. to her Lannan Foundation co-workers who accompanied her into Walter De Maria’s The Lightning Field, among countless others — to be endlessly illuminated by her inimitable presence and song, which endure,” Barnett told the attendees.
Hamilton’s untimely death is a major loss to family, friends, colleagues, students — literature lovers everywhere — but the work she produced and shared with the world will be lauded and celebrated for years to come.