Fred Moramarco

Fred (Federico) Moramarco was the author and editor of several books, including Containing Multitudes: Poetry in the U.S. since 1950; Men of Our Time, (an anthology of world poetry); and Deliciously Italian, a book about Italian cooking and cuisine. After completing workat the University of Utah on his M.A. (1966) and his Ph.D in American Literature (1969)—his dissertation was published as the definitive scholarly work on the neglected American novelist, Edward Dahlberg—Moramarco accepted a full-time position as a young assistant professor in the English Department of the then San Diego State College in 1969. He was a poet, literary critic, professor of literature at San Diego State Universtiy, producer, director, and actor. He was the founding editor of Poetry International, coproduced the award-winning Hannah and Martin at the Lyceum Theatre in 2006, and performed at the Old Globe, the San Diego Rep, Sledgehammer, Diversionary Theatre, and with other San Diego theater companies. A much loved member of the Southern California literary and theater community, Moramarco died of cardiac arrest the evening before Valentine’s Day. The innovative New York poet Kenneth Koch had been a teacher of Moramarco’s back when they were both young men living in New York.