Obituary of Dale Davis
Our beloved wife and mother Dale T. Davis passed away peacefully at Highland Hospital on October 20, 2025, after a courageous battle with cancer.
She is survived by Michael Starenko, her devoted husband of 36 years; son Christopher Davis of Los Angeles; and daughter Catherine Davis of Astoria, NY. Dale is predeceased by her loving parents, George and Celia (Mignani) Tristani, sister Carol Donna (Trela) Tristani, and previous husband Stewart Davis.
Dale was born on June 27, 1941, in Pittsfield, MA, and grew up in nearby Dalton, an archetypal Berkshire County small town. She graduated from the College of New Rochelle in 1963, then studied at Harvard and worked in MIT’s Department of Economics. In 1966, Dale moved to Rochester, NY, and settled into an Italianate farmhouse in Fairport, NY, where she went on to become “an American writer, educator, publisher, producer, scholar, and advocate for young people,” as Wikipedia noted.
Dale’s literary and educational work were inseparable. A poet and independent scholar of modernist literature, she published and lectured on writers such as William Carlos Williams, H.D., Mina Loy, and Kenneth Burke, and counted among her mentors and collaborators A. Poulin Jr., James Laughlin, and The Dial’s James Sibley Watson Jr. Her essays and presentations—at the Modern Language Association, the National Book Awards, and Harvard’s William Carlos Williams Centennial—helped renew attention to overlooked modernist voices, particularly women writers and editors.
In 1979, after starting the Upstate chapter of New York Poets in Schools, she founded the New York State Literary Center, which she directed for more than four decades. Through NYSLC, Dale designed intensive residency programs that brought her, along with other poets, visual artists, musicians, and actors, into classrooms, alternative schools, and correctional facilities. Her pioneering projects—Explore Latin America, like we call it home, AIDS ’N Us, and Arts, Literacy, and the Classroom Community—received national recognition for honoring the wisdom of young people whose voices were too often unheard.
Those who knew or worked with Dale remember her not only as brilliant and visionary, but also as principled, forthright, and unfailingly dependable. Quick to celebrate others, she thrived on collaboration and met each person—student, colleague, or stranger—with the same genuine respect and delight. Whether speaking with a Nobel laureate or a tenth grader discovering that Hip-Hop is a scholarly discipline, she listened intently, encouraged curiosity, and made others feel seen. Her life’s work affirmed that education at its best is an act of attention—and that poetry, in her words, is “the speech of the heart.”
Dale’s Celebration of Life will take place with family and friends this winter. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Dale’s name to Boa Editions, Writers & Books, and The Marshall Project.