Henry S. Taylor
{{short description|American poet}}
{{for|Illinois financier and businessman Henry Stryker Taylor|John Whitfield Bunn and Jacob Bunn}}
{{Infobox academic
| name = Henry Taylor
| birth_name = Henry Splawn Taylor
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|June 21, 1942}}
| spouse = Mooshe Taylor
| birth_place = Lincoln, Virginia, U.S.
| education = University of Virginia (BA)
Hollins University (MA)
| workplaces = American University
Roanoke College
University of Utah
| awards = Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1986)
| discipline = Creative writing
| sub_discipline = Poetry
| death_date = {{death date and age|2024|10|13|1942|6|21}}
}}
Henry Splawn Taylor (June 21, 1942 - October 13, 2024) was an American poet, academic, and translator. The author of more than 15 books of poems, translation, and nonfiction, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1986.
Early life and education
Taylor was born in Lincoln, Virginia, in rural Loudoun County, where he was raised as a Quaker.[http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Taylor_Henry_1942- "Henry Taylor (1942– )"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161110011109/http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Taylor_Henry_1942- |date=2016-11-10 }}. Daniel Cross Turner. Encyclopedia Virginia (encyclopediavirginia.org). Retrieved 23 October 2011. He went to high school at George School in Newtown, Pennsylvania. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Virginia in 1965 and a Master of Arts from Hollins University in 1966.{{Cite web |date=2023-04-29 |title=Henry Taylor |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/henry-taylor |access-date=2023-04-29 |website=Poetry Foundation |language=en}}
Career
Taylor taught literature and co-directed the Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing at American University from 1971 to 2003.
Taylor won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1986 for his book The Flying Change. His additional honors include two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry.
Personal life
Taylor met his first wife, Frances Carney Taylor, when they both attended Hollins University, and they married in 1968. They lived briefly in Salt Lake City before returning to Northern Virginia with their two sons, settling in Lincoln, Virginia in 1977. The couple divorced in 1996.
From 2015, Taylor and his second wife, fiber artist Mooshe Taylor, lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico.{{Cite web |title=AT THE THURSDAY NIGHT JAM, REMEMBERING AN ABSENT SINGER |url=http://www.roanokereview.org/henry-taylor/2017 |access-date=2023-04-29 |website=Roanoke Review |language=en-US}}
Bibliography
- This Tilted World Is Where I Live: New and Selected Poems 1962-2020, Louisiana State University Press, 2020. {{ISBN|978-0-8071-7177-6}}
- Crooked Run, Louisiana State University Press, 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-8071-3125-1}}
- Brief Candles: 101 Clerihews, Louisiana State University Press, 2000. {{ISBN|978-0-8071-2564-9}}
- Electra (a verse translation of Sophocles’ play in Sophocles I), University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998. {{ISBN|978-0-8122-1653-0}}
- Understanding Fiction: Poems, 1986–1996, Louisiana State University Press, 1996. {{ISBN|978-0-8071-2111-5}}
- Curculio (a translation of the play by Titus Maccius Plautus in Plautus: The Comedies, Volume 1), Johns Hopkins University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-8018-5070-7}}
- Compulsory Figures: Essays on Recent American Poets, Louisiana State University Press, 1992. {{ISBN|978-0-8071-1755-2}}
- The Flying Change, Louisiana State University Press, 1986. {{ISBN|978-0-8071-1263-2}}
- The Children of Herakles, Oxford University Press, 1982. {{ISBN|978-0-19-507288-4}}
- The Water of Light: A Miscellany in Honor of Brewster Ghiselin, University of Utah Press, 1976. {{ISBN|0-87480-105-2}}
- An Afternoon of Pocket Billiards, University of Utah Press, 1975. {{ISBN|0-87480-098-6}}
- Poetry: Points of Departure, Winthrop, 1974. {{ISBN|978-0-87626-678-6}}
- Breakings, Solo Press, 1969.
- The Girl in the Black Raincoat, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1966. ASIN B000FREQKI
- The Horse Show at Midnight and An Afternoon of Pocket Billiards, Louisiana State University Press, 1965. {{ISBN|978-0-8071-1763-7}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.cortlandreview.com/issue/six/taylor6.htm Interview with Taylor in the Courtland Review]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20070112171020/http://www.hollins.edu/grad/eng_writing/books/bookfrm.htm List of books by Hollins alumni]
- {{LCAuth|n50009273|Henry Taylor|42|}}
{{PulitzerPrize PoetryAuthors 1976–2000}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Henry S.}}
Category:Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners
Category:Hollins University alumni
Category:University of Virginia alumni
Category:People from Loudoun County, Virginia
Category:20th-century American poets
Category:21st-century American poets
Category:20th-century American male writers
Category:21st-century American male writers
Category:Roanoke College faculty
Category:University of Utah faculty
{{US-poet-1940s-stub}}