CORNISH – Thomas Robson Carper, 84, of Cornish, died on June 9, 2021, at Gosnell Memorial Hospice House in Scarborough. He was born in Morristown, N.J., on Nov. 3, 1936, to Wood Bowyer Carper Jr. and Eleanor Robson Carper. He was graduated from St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H., in 1954. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, a master’s degree from New York University, and a Ph.D. from Boston University.

In New York City he worked as a foreign language recordings editor for Holt, Rinehart and Winston. There he met his future wife, Janet Holmes, an editor of French and German textbooks. Following a period of editing books at Oxford Press in New York, he moved with Janet to Cornish, Maine. He was a professor at University of Southern Maine for many years.

A recognized master of the sonnet form of poetry, Tom is the author of three volumes of intricate, insightful poems: Fiddle Lane; From Nature; and Distant Blue. Singing was a lifelong pursuit, and he sang with New York’s Canby Singers, and the Cornish Trio.

Tom served as a Cornish Selectman, and as Secretary of the Bonney Memorial Library Board of Trustees.

Tom is survived by his wife of 56 years; brothers, Nicholas W. Carper of Villanova, Pa., and Timothy Scott Carper of Novato, Calif.; and many nieces and nephews.

A graveside service in Cornish will be scheduled for late July. Arrangements have been entrusted to Poitras, Neal and York Funeral Home. Messages of condolence may be sent to the funeral home website: http://www.mainefuneral.com.

Memorial contributions can be made to the Bonney Memorial Library

PO Box 857

Cornish, ME 04020