Amy Clampitt, 74, known for her dense, ornate poetry, died of ovarian cancer Saturday at her home in Lenox, Mass. She published her first book of poetry, "The Kingfisher," when she was 63. It immediately pushed her to the front ranks of American poets. Organized around the elements earth, air, fire and water, "The Kingfisher" treated subjects as various as the plants and marine life of New England, John Lennon's murder, the Holocaust and the Vietnam War. It was followed by her poetry collections "What the Light Was Like" (1985), "Archaic Figure" (1987), "Westward" (1990) and "A Silence Opens" (1994).

Dr. Walter F. Heiligenberg, 56, a scientist who learned about animal behavior and the nervous system by studying electric fish, died Thursday in the USAir plane crash near Pittsburgh. A resident of Del Mar, Calif., Dr. Heiligenberg was a professor of behavioral physiology at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography the University of California at San Diego, and was on his way to deliver a lecture to graduate students at the University of Pittsburgh when the crash occurred. In pursuit of different varieties of electric fish, Dr. Heiligenberg had visited the Amazon River basin and countries like Panama, Venezuela and Brazil. Dr. Heiligenberg studied how the fish surround themselves with an electric current to aid navigation, avoid predators, identify sources of food and communicate with one another.