When Kelly Kim ’26 started a poetry club at Princeton in her sophomore year, nobody went to the first study break. Nobody, that is, until “some very tall man [who] looked like an English major” knocked on the door.
From that day forward, Lauren Blackburn ’26 and Kim “bonded over this desire to become ‘real poets,’” according to writings on Kim’s Instagram, which she gave permission to The Daily Princetonian to share. In English Junior Seminar, they “did not read [the] books [they] were supposed to read and wrote poetry instead of writing essays,” becoming close friends in the process.
Blackburn was found deceased by authorities on April 25, several days after he was reported missing. He was 23 years old at the time of his death and is remembered by friends and mentors as a brilliant writer, voracious learner, and loving friend. A family obituary said he passed away after a “courageous battle with bipolar disorder.”
Blackburn was born on August 11, 2001 in Corvallis, Oregon. After moving to Indiana, he attended Corydon Central High School, where he stood out as a member of the cross-country track team, National Honors Society, and Academic Bowl.
Blackburn’s passions spanned far and wide. He loved K-Pop, Virgina Woolf, and the soccer team Tottenham Hotspur F.C. He completed a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the California Santa Rosa Mission in 2020-21. Blackburn also spent last summer in South Korea as a recipient of the 2024 Sam Hutton Fund for the Arts, learning about his Korean heritage and taking language classes. Most of all, Blackburn loved writing.
“Lauren was a brilliant writer and scholar. He had so much greatness inside of him, and I really think he could have been the next great contemporary author,” Julia Shin ’26, one of his close friends, wrote to the ‘Prince.’ “He wanted to write a book that would turn love into form, one that would write a novel both in and out of time, that would be a transcript of thought onto the page.”
Blackburn and Lillian Fitzgerald ’25.
Yiyun Li, head of the Princeton Creative Writing Department, recounted Blackburn’s remarkable presence in her advanced fiction class last fall.
“Lauren was one of the most well-read students I’ve ever had in my Princeton career. He had a very good memory of books he’d read, was exceedingly thoughtful and inquisitive about writing, and was a gentle and kind presence in the classroom,” Li wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince.’ “His writing was about human hearts and human conditions, touching upon questions that might not have answers.”
Bradin Cormack, Professor of English, who had Blackburn as a student in his class on love poetry this past semester, echoed Li’s reflections on Blackburn’s talents as a writer and scholar.
“He was one of the most talented students I have taught, with an open curiosity for how others have thought about questions that interested him and with a really brilliant sense of how complex language becomes a means of discovery,” Cormack shared with the ‘Prince.’ “That made him an exceptional reader of poetry; and it was a joy to watch him, in his writing and conversation, think with the poetry that caught his attention.”
Cormack added, “[Blackburn] had a great sense of reading as something we do to make a world with and for one another.”
“I wish I still had some of his assignments/stories,” Ed Park, a lecturer in creative writing, wrote to the ‘Prince.’ “It’s hard to conjure the style from memory, but his writing was striking — intense and interior; at times too opaque; a way of combatting or understanding the flurry of thoughts in his head. I loved how the class responded to his stories, which had their unsettling side — with great care and compassion.”
Blackburn also wrote two pieces for the ‘Prince,’ including one about Park and a profile of a University program that provided protection for Ukrainian and Russian scholars.
Behind Blackburn’s brilliant writing abilities was a caring and inquisitive character that touched many that crossed his path, his mentors and friends said.
“I was Lauren’s advisor for his junior independent work, although very quickly we became something like collaborators, almost co-conspirators, bound together by our mutual love of Virginia Woolf,” Maria diBattista, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince.’
“[Blackburn] was both shy and forthcoming, reluctant to assert himself and at the same time unguarded about confiding the ideas, intuitions, and feelings that intrigued but could also baffle him,” she added. “He had the most open face, animated by a sweet, almost bashful smile … we ended up talking about books he was eager to read, so hungry was he for the company and impressions of other minds, others’ ways of seeing and being in the world.”
Kathryn Farrell ’25, one of his friends, remembered Blackburn’s inquisitive and often silly character.
“Lauren would show up to late meal with his quiet smile, a draft of some experimental piece of writing which deconstructed the fourth wall between author and reader, and a bacon cheeseburger that would be picked up and set down untouched a hundred times while he spoke enthusiastically about Kant or Rilke or Virginia Woolf,” Farrell wrote to the ‘Prince.’
“Early in our friendship, he convinced me for several months that ‘Lauren’ was a nickname for his true legal name “Lawrence” (it is not),” she continued. “He would sit or stand on the highest possible horizontal surface in a room like a cat, and make his fingers into heart shapes at his friends.”
Courtesy of Farrell.
“As a friend, Lauren was the most sweet, silly, beautiful person,” Shin added, reflecting on their time together. “He had a way of supporting you that made you feel entirely heard. He was kind. He was so present. He loved with all his heart.”
Blackburn is survived by his parents Soonhee and Martin Blackburn, and his siblings Elisabeth, Colin, Cardon, and Quincy Blackburn.
Victoria Davies is a head News editor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Plymouth, England and typically covers University operations.
Caitlyn Tablada is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from New York, N.Y. and typically covers student life.
Please direct any corrections requests to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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