AUBURN – Caroline Baury Jansen Knox died from complications of Alzheimer’s disease in Auburn, on Thursday, April 24, 2025. She lived an extraordinary life as a distinguished poet, teacher of English literature, and mother of three children. She would have turned 87 on Sunday.

Caroline was born in 1938 to Thomas Egbert Jansen Jr. and Hope Slade Jansen in Boston, Mass. She grew up in Dedham, Mass., attended the Putney School in Vermont, and graduated from Radcliffe College with an A.B. (cum laude) in English in 1959. She married L. Mason Knox in 1960, who would become a priest of the Episcopal Church, and they had three children: Juliana, Samuel, and Sarah. Throughout much of the 1970s, Caroline and her family lived in Wisconsin, where she earned a Ph.D. in creative writing at the University of Wisconsin -Milwaukee. Her husband Mason died in 1981.

Caroline had a deep love of language and found joy in poetry until her last days. She devoted her professional life to teaching English at the University of Connecticut and to writing 10 collections of poetry -notably, “The House Party” (1984), “To Newfoundland” (1989), “Sleepers Wake” (1994), and “A Beaker: New and Selected Poems” (2002). Her later work includes “He Paves the Road with Iron Bars” (2004), which won the Maurice English Award; “Quaker Guns” (2008), which received a Recommended Reading Award from the Massachusetts Center for the Book; “Nine Worthies” (2010); “Flemish” (2013); “To Drink Boiled Snow” (2015); and “Hear Trains” (2019). Knox’s work has appeared widely in publications such as the “Boston Review,” “Paris Review,” “Ploughshares,” and “Poetry,” and her poems were included in “The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry,” Second Edition (2013).

A longtime resident of Westport Harbor, Mass., Caroline was a voracious reader and enjoyed spending time outdoors and in the ocean with her friends and family. She was a member of St. Andrew’s by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Little Compton, R.I. Throughout her life, she was especially fond of dogs – especially her Newfoundland named Steamboat and QuickTime and Cyrus, both Welsh Corgis.

Caroline is survived by her siblings Trintje D. Jansen and Nicholas S. Jansen, both of Westport Harbor, Mass. Her brother, Thomas B.B. Jansen died in 2021. She is also survived by her three children and their families, Juliana Knox and David Greenfield of Waltham, Mass.; Sam Knox of Ivoryton, Conn., and his daughters Phoebe and Lucy Knox; and Sarah and Bill Skelton of Auburn, and their daughters Emma, Margaret, and Amelia Skelton.

A memorial service will be held for Caroline Knox at St. Andrew’s by-the-Sea in Little Compton, R.I. in June.

Caroline’s family wishes to thank the staff of Schooner Memory Care, Clover Health Care, and Family Healthcare Associates of Auburn for their compassionate care.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Maine Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association in Scarborough, Maine.