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Henry S. Taylor

ヘンリー・エス・テイラー

Henry S. Taylor

Profile

Gender
Male
Born
1942-06-21 （Lincoln, Virginia, United States）
Died
2024-10-13 age 82
Nationality
United States
Languages
English
Religion
Quaker
Residence History
Lincoln, Virginia → Newtown, Pennsylvania → Salt Lake City, Utah → Northern Virginia → Santa Fe, New Mexico

Career

Occupations
poet, academic, translator, essayist
Active Years
1965-2024
Affiliations
American University, Roanoke College, University of Utah

Education

University of Virginia
Degree: BA
Period: 1961–1965
Year of Graduation: 1965
Country: United States
Hollins University
Degree: MA
Period: 1965–1966
Year of Graduation: 1966
Country: United States

Awards

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
1986
Work: The Flying Change
Organization: Pulitzer Prize Board
Result: 受賞
Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry
Organization: Aiken Taylor Award committee
Result: 受賞
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
Organization: National Endowment for the Arts
Result: 受賞（2回）
American Academy of Arts and Letters awards
Organization: American Academy of Arts and Letters
Result: 受賞（複数）

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

The Flying Change

1986 poetry

A collection of poems that weaves everyday detail and memory, noted for its quiet tone and observational imagery. Winner of the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

memoryeveryday lifenature

This Tilted World Is Where I Live: New and Selected Poems 1962-2020

2020 poetry (selected poems)

A selected collection of poems spanning 1962 to 2020, offering an overview of Taylor's poetics and perspectives on life.

retrospectiontimeplace-memory

Crooked Run

2006 poetry

A collection exploring regional and personal history, where local identity and private memory intersect.

regional identityfamilylandscape

Electra (verse translation of Sophocles' play)

1998 translation (drama)

A verse translation of Sophocles' Electra into modern English, reconstructing the language of classical drama poetically.

revengefamily tragedymodernizing the classics

Bibliography

  • This Tilted World Is Where I Live: New and Selected Poems 1962-2020
  • Crooked Run
  • Brief Candles: 101 Clerihews
  • Electra (translation)
  • Understanding Fiction: Poems, 1986–1996
  • Curculio (translation of Plautus)
  • Compulsory Figures: Essays on Recent American Poets
  • The Flying Change
  • The Children of Herakles
  • The Water of Light: A Miscellany in Honor of Brewster Ghiselin
  • An Afternoon of Pocket Billiards
  • Poetry: Points of Departure
  • Breakings
  • The Girl in the Black Raincoat
  • The Horse Show at Midnight and An Afternoon of Pocket Billiards

Translations by Author

  • Sophocles' Electra (verse translation)
  • Plautus' Curculio (translation)

Style & Themes

Literary Style
concise, observational dictionquiet tonepoetic attention to everyday detail
Recurring Motifs
memory and the pasthome and regional identitynature and landscape

Legacy

Henry S. Taylor was an American poet known for his attention to everyday detail and quiet observational voice; he won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for The Flying Change. He taught creative writing for decades and contributed as a translator and critic.

Archives

  • Library of Congress catalog records

Trivia

  • Raised in a Quaker family.
  • Co-directed the MFA program in creative writing at American University from 1971 to 2003.
  • Won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for The Flying Change.
  • Lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico with his wife Mooshe Taylor from 2015.