George Garrett (poet)

George Palmer Garrett, Jr. ( June 11, 1929 - May 25, 2008) was an American poet and novelist. He was the poet laureate of Virginia from 2002 to 2006. His novels include "The Finished Man"," Double Vision", and the Elizabethan Trilogy, composed of "Death of the Fox", "The Succession", and "Entered from the Sun". He has worked as a book reviewer and screenwriter, and taught at Hollins University and, for many years, the University of Virginia. He is the subject of critical books by R. H. W. Dillard, Casey Clabough, and Irving Malin.

Biography

George Garrett was born in Orlando, Florida on June 11, 1929. He attended the Sewanee Military Academy in Tennessee and The Hill School at Pottstown, Pennsylvania, graduating from the latter in 1947. He earned his BA from Princeton University in 1952, having matriculated in 1947 and having attended Columbia University in 1948-49. He also received his MA (1956) and PhD (1985) from Princeton.

Garrett served in the United States Army Field Artillery (1952-55).

He began his teaching career as an assistant professor at Wesleyan University, Middleton, Connecticut (1957-60). After one year as a visiting lecturer at Rice University, he became associate professor of English at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, where he taught for five years before accepting a post as professor of English at Hollins College, Virginia, in 1967. In 1964-65 he was writer-in-residence at Princeton University. In 1971, he became professor of English and writer-in-residence at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, where he taught until 1973. From 1974 to 1977 he was senior fellow at the Council of the Humanities, Princeton University. He was then one year at Columbia University as adjunct professor (1977-78), one semester as writer-in-residence at Bennington College, Vermont, one semester at the Virginia Military Institute, and several years at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1979-84). In 1984 Garrett was appointed Henry Hoyns Professor of English at the University of Virginia, the position in which he continued until his retirement in December 1999.

Garrett's service to the arts was substantial. He served a two-year term as president of the Associated Writing Programs (1971-73). A charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, he was the organization's vice-chancellor (1987-93) and chancellor (1993-97). Over the years, he edited several magazines and book series. He was Contemporary Poetry Series editor at the University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1962-68; and Short Story Series editor at the Louisiana State University Press, 1966-69. From 1958 to 1971 he was United States poetry editor for "Transatlantic Review" and, from 1965 to 1971 co-editor of "Hollins Critic". He was a contributing editor for "Contempora" and assistant editor of "The Film Journal". With Brendan Galvin he edited "Poultry: A Magazine of Voice"; and he was fiction editor at "The Texas Review".

George Garrett's papers are housed in the Duke University Special Collections Library.

Among his poems is 'Virtuosity', inspired by Bernini's Apollo and Daphne:

"I see the girl become a tree,"/ "fear printed cleanly on her face,"/ "lips tense with a frozen scream."

"From her toes roots reach for earth." /"Leaves from her fingers flutter free" /"to test a breeze which is her clothing."

"She is made of marble much like flesh," /"veined in blue and polished to a point" /"where mortal hands are sorely tempted."

"Bernini, virtuoso, tortured her" /"into this being and, as well, "/"the slim, lightfooted god a step behind."

"I think: What virtue is in this? "/"Marble is not flesh and blood. "/"I love the grain of naked lumber."

"But here she is, in fact, who first"/ "was wholly stone and now seems flesh"/ "and in one shudder will be wood."

"Even the god must be baffled"/ "by richness of change and becoming,"/ "by the anguish of answered prayer."

"My prayers stop in my throat."/ "I dream of our lost beginnings."/ "I huddle in poor skin and bones."

"Think of Bernini, then. Praise him."/ "His joyous hands were simply free."/ "Here prayers are songs from Eden."

Awards

* Sewanee Review fellowship (1958)
* American Academy in Rome fellowship (1958)
* Ford grant, for drama (1960)
* National Endowment for the Arts grant (1967)
* Contempora award (1971)
* Guggenheim fellowship (1974)
* American Academy award (1985)
* New York Public Library Literary Lion award (1988)
* T. S. Eliot Award (1989)
* PEN/Malamud Award for short fiction (1990)
* Aiken-Taylor Award (1999)
* Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Virginia (2004)
* Cleanth Brooks Medal for Lifetime Achievement from the Fellowship of Southern Writers (2005)
* Carole Weinstein Poetry Prize (2006)

Bibliography

Novels

* "The Finished Man" (1960)
* "Which Ones Are the Enemy?" (1962)
* "Do, Lord, Remember Me" (1965)
* "Death of the Fox" (1971)
* "The Succession: A Novel of Elizabeth and James" (1983)
* "Poison Pen" (1986)
* "Entered from the Sun" (1990)
* "The Old Army Game: A Novel and Stories" (1994)
* "The King of Babylon Shall Not Come Against You" (1996)
* "The Elizabethan Trilogy" ("Death of the Fox", "Entered from the Sun", and "Succession") (1998)
* "Double Vision" (2004)

Short Story Collections

* "King of the Mountain" (1958)
* "In the Briar Patch" (1961)
* "Cold Ground Was My Bed Last Night" (1964)
* "A Wreath for Garibaldi and Other Stories" (1969)
* "The Magic Striptease" (1973)
* "To Recollect a Cloud of Ghosts: Christmas in England" (1979)
* "An Evening Performance: New and Selected Short Stories" (1985)
* "Empty Bed Blues" (2006)

Plays

* "Sir Slob and the Princess: A Play for Children" (1962)
* "Garden Spot, U.S.A." (1962)
* "Enchanted Ground" (1981)

Poetry

* "The Reverend Ghost" (1957)
* "The Sleeping Gypsy and Other Poems" (1958)
* "Abraham's Knife and Other Poems" (1961)
* "For a Bitter Season: New and Selected Poems" (1967)
* "Welcome to the Medicine Show: Postcards, Flashcards, Snapshots" (1978)
* "Luck's Shining Child: A Miscellany of Poems and Verses" (1981)
* "The Collected Poems of George Garrett" (1984)
* "Days of Our Lives Lie in Fragments: New and Old Poems, 1957-1997" (1998)

Other Writings

* "James Jones" (biography) (1984)
* "Understanding Mary Lee Settle" (1988)
* "My Silk Purse and Yours: The Publishing Scene and American Literary Art" (1992)
* "The Sorrows of Fat City: A Selection of Literary Essays and Reviews" (1992)
* "Whistling in the Dark: True Stories and Other Fables" (1992)
* "Bad Man Blues: A Portable George Garrett" (1998)
* "Going to See the Elephant: Pieces of a Writing Life" (2002)
* "Southern Excursions: Views on Southern Letters in My Time" (2003)

Death

Garrett died at the age of 78 of cancer, according to his family. He had been diagnosed with cancer in 2006 after having pulmonary problems for some years. [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/30/books/30garrett.html?ref=obituaries George Garrett, 78, Southern Novelist, Is Dead - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com ] ]

References

External links

* [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/30/books/30garrett.html Obituary in "The New York Times"]
* [http://www.readthehook.com/blog/index.php/2008/05/26/farewell-george-garrett/ "Farewell, George Garrett" in "The Hook" newspaper]
* [http://biography.jrank.org/pages/4344/Garrett-George-Palmer-Jr.html jrank.org brief biography and bibliography]
* [http://meyerhoff.goucher.edu/cwpromo/kratz/GeorgeGarrett.htm June 1999 "Chronicles" interview by Madison Smartt Bell]
* [http://www.archipelago.org/vol3-2/garrett.htm "Archipelago" interview]
* [http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1999/summer/dillard-george-garrett-appreciation/ R.H.W. Dillard's "Appreciation" in the "Virginia Quarterly Review"]
* [http://www.percontra.net/4garrettpoetry.htm Three poems by Garrett]