What do you think?
Rate this book
The Other Side of Loneliness: A Spititual Journey
A poet and one-time aspiring priest describes his decision to open a tuition-free school for underprivileged children, his efforts to help numerous young people progress into college, and the special relationships he has known throughout the past thirty years. 15,000 first printing.
264 pages, Hardcover
First published July 12, 2006
About the author
Ned O'Gorman
37 books1 followerEdward Charles O'Gorman was born on September 26, 1929 in New York City. He spent most of his early life in Southport, Connecticut, and Bradford, Vermont. In 1950, he graduated from St. Michael's College in Vermont and later received an M.A. from Columbia University.
His poetry earned him Guggenheim Fellowships in 1956 and 1962 and in 1958 he won the Lamont Poetry Award for his collection of poems, The Night of the Hammer.
He was the literary editor of the Catholic magazine Jubilee from 1962 to 1965. He was appointed by the U.S. State Department to be the American studies specialist in Chile, Argentina and Brazil in 1965. In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. He later received the Rothko Chapel Award for Commitment to Truth and Freedom.
In July 1966, he arrived in Harlem and worked that summer as a volunteer teacher in a Head Start program. The children's library he started two months later gradually became a tuition-free school known as The Children's Storefront, welcoming all children living in the area.
After losing a dispute over succession at the Storefront, he founded the Ricardo O'Gorman Garden and Center for Resources in the Humanities which opened in 1998 with the collaboration of two teachers from the original school. The Center, which O'Gorman continued to direct, is located on West 129th Street in New York City.
O'Gorman also taught at Brooklyn College, the New School, and Manhattan College. He wrote six books of poetry, five books of prose, and numerous articles and poetry published in various magazines.
He died of pancreatic cancer at his Manhattan home on March 7, 2014, at the age of eighty-four.
His poetry earned him Guggenheim Fellowships in 1956 and 1962 and in 1958 he won the Lamont Poetry Award for his collection of poems, The Night of the Hammer.
He was the literary editor of the Catholic magazine Jubilee from 1962 to 1965. He was appointed by the U.S. State Department to be the American studies specialist in Chile, Argentina and Brazil in 1965. In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. He later received the Rothko Chapel Award for Commitment to Truth and Freedom.
In July 1966, he arrived in Harlem and worked that summer as a volunteer teacher in a Head Start program. The children's library he started two months later gradually became a tuition-free school known as The Children's Storefront, welcoming all children living in the area.
After losing a dispute over succession at the Storefront, he founded the Ricardo O'Gorman Garden and Center for Resources in the Humanities which opened in 1998 with the collaboration of two teachers from the original school. The Center, which O'Gorman continued to direct, is located on West 129th Street in New York City.
O'Gorman also taught at Brooklyn College, the New School, and Manhattan College. He wrote six books of poetry, five books of prose, and numerous articles and poetry published in various magazines.
He died of pancreatic cancer at his Manhattan home on March 7, 2014, at the age of eighty-four.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 2, 2014
This was not an easy narrative to follow because it seemed to have been constructed in blocks. The chronology was sometimes confusing, giving it a scattershot effect. Maybe he meant to convey that his life before he settled into Harlem was scattershot.
His childhood was comfortable and secure but as he grew towards adolescence, the family became increasingly dysfunctional. He was enamored of books and poetry. He felt always fearful of his father, and he struggled to accept his own sexual identity, through tremendous confusion. His culture had no language for adolescents to identify forbidden homosexual attractions.
Writing poetry was a lifelong discipline for him. He was expelled from college, he graduated college, spent a tortured semester teaching in a boarding school. He took graduate classes, taught college briefly, won a Guggenheim, toured Europe, entered a monastery. He was far too unconventional to fit into communal life.
When he found himself in Harlem, NYC, he was shocked by the poverty, the violence, the chaos. He felt called to bring beauty and hope into the lives of Harlem's children, and this became a forty year long work.
What is so inspiring in this memoir is the honesty with which O'Gorman describes the simple thing he was so dedicated to doing, in spite of the misunderstanding and resistance of so many. He founded two schools and a pedagogy that was based on his own early life experience: he thought children should be fed decent food, see beautiful things, explore and understand their neighborhood, be given a sense of safety, of learning how to cope with their circumstances. The odds were always stacked against him.
His was a life well spent. He stayed among people who needed a breath of gratuitous life and love, and he gave that generously. I was glad to have stayed with the story.
His childhood was comfortable and secure but as he grew towards adolescence, the family became increasingly dysfunctional. He was enamored of books and poetry. He felt always fearful of his father, and he struggled to accept his own sexual identity, through tremendous confusion. His culture had no language for adolescents to identify forbidden homosexual attractions.
Writing poetry was a lifelong discipline for him. He was expelled from college, he graduated college, spent a tortured semester teaching in a boarding school. He took graduate classes, taught college briefly, won a Guggenheim, toured Europe, entered a monastery. He was far too unconventional to fit into communal life.
When he found himself in Harlem, NYC, he was shocked by the poverty, the violence, the chaos. He felt called to bring beauty and hope into the lives of Harlem's children, and this became a forty year long work.
What is so inspiring in this memoir is the honesty with which O'Gorman describes the simple thing he was so dedicated to doing, in spite of the misunderstanding and resistance of so many. He founded two schools and a pedagogy that was based on his own early life experience: he thought children should be fed decent food, see beautiful things, explore and understand their neighborhood, be given a sense of safety, of learning how to cope with their circumstances. The odds were always stacked against him.
His was a life well spent. He stayed among people who needed a breath of gratuitous life and love, and he gave that generously. I was glad to have stayed with the story.
November 20, 2007
This is the story of a poet/teacher who opened a free school in the middle of Harlem. The book is divided into 2 parts. The first part is about his childhood and it's a little slow and hard to get into. The second part is about his time in Harlem which is more interesting. The overall tone of the book is pretty helpless and a little depressing but I enjoyed reading about the life he's lived sacrificing for people who never appreciated him. I guess sometimes that's just a reality.
July 3, 2016
Interesting but rather short read. Feels unfinished.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews