Richard Stanley Allen (August 8, 1939 – December 26, 2017) was an American poet, literary critic and academic.
[1] When he retired, he was the Charles A. Dana Endowed Chair Professor at the University of Bridgeport.
During this time he wrote the poem "Solace" in remembrance of the victims of the shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, CT.
This poem was subsequently set to music by the composer William Bolcom.
[2] Allen was co-editor of several anthologies of science fiction and science fiction criticism,[3] and his book, Overnight in the Guest House of the Mystic, was a finalist for the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.