Ralph Angel

On March 9, 2020, University of Redlands Provost Kathy Ogren announced that Ralph Angel had died after suffering from a brief, unspecified illness and subsequent hospitalization. It was later reported that Angel had died on March 6, with his wife Mary by his side.

In his 1996 Los Angeles Times review of Neither World (Miami University Press, 1995), poet Mark Doty observed that "The Los Angeles that Angel's poetry occupies and creates is never named, and for good reason, since it is not local but broadly American, a version of the psychological landscape of any American city today."

His first collection of poetry, Anxious Latitudes (Wesleyan University Press, 1986), was widely praised and reviewed. His second book, Neither World (Miami University Press, 1995), which received the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets, garnered him national prominence. A third work, Twice Removed (Sarabande Books, 2001), was nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. His fourth collection, Exceptions and Melancholies: Poems 1986-2006 (Sarabande Books, 2006), was honored with the 2007 PEN USA Award for Poetry. His final collection, Your Moon (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2013), was awarded the 2013 Green Rose Poetry Prize.

Ralph Angel (May 2, 1951 – March 6, 2020) was an American poet and educator.

Born on May 2, 1951, in Seattle, Washington, Angel was a second-generation American of Sephardic Jewish descent. He attended inner-city public schools in Seattle and, while working on freight trains for the Union Pacific Railroad, earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Washington. He later received a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of California, Irvine, and lived in and around Los Angeles.