John Dickson
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Poet John Dickson was born in Chicago in 1916 and lived in Evanston, Illinois, for much of his life. He attended Furman College in Greenville, South Carolina, and was a grain trader for the Chicago Board of Trade. Dickson published his first poem in 1968; after he retired from trading, he devoted himself full time to writing, publishing four poetry collections: Victoria Hotel (1979), Waving at Trains (1986), The Music of Solid Objects (1997), and Lake Michigan Scrolls (2002). Also a short story writer, Dickson’s stories were published in the Best American Short Stories anthologies of 1961 and 1969.
Dickson’s awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and the Friends of Literature Award; his work was one of the first featured on Chicago Poetry-on-the-Buses.