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The official state symbols represent the cultural heritage and natural treasures of each state or the entire United States

Virginia Symbols

Virginia State Poet Laureate

George Garrett

July 2002 Poet Laureate

July 2002 -- George Garrett, a poet, novelist, essayist, humorist, critic and editor, has been named poet laureate of Virginia by Governor Mark R. Warner.

§ 7.1-43. Poet laureate.
The honorary position of Poet Laureate of Virginia is hereby created. Beginning in 1998, the Governor may appoint a poet laureate from a list of nominees submitted by the Poetry Society of Virginia. Each poet laureate shall serve a term of two years with no restrictions on reappointment.
(1997, c. 299.) [Repealed.]

George Garrett has had a varied literary career, publishing in almost every genre. In 2001, he published the nonfiction book Going to See the Elephant: Pieces of a Writing Life and in 1998, Bad Man Blues: A Portable George Garrett. His most recent novel is The King of Babylon Shall Not Come Against You (1996). He is best known, however, for his trilogy of historical novels, Death of the Fox (1971), The Succession: A Novel of Elizabeth and James (1983), and Entered from the Sun (1990). His latest short story collection is An Evening Performance: New and Selected Stories (1985). Garrett has also published several collections of poetry and plays, has written screenplays, and has edited a number of books, most recently, The Yellow Shoe Poets: Selected Poems, 1964-1999.

Garrett received his Ph.D. from Princeton and holds an honorary degree from the University of the South. He has been a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Sabbatical Fellowship, a Ford Foundation Grant, and the Rome Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the T.S. Eliot Award, the PEN/Malamud Award for Short Fiction, and the Commonwealth of Virginia Governor's Award for the Arts. He has taught at the University of Michigan, Bennington College, Princeton University, and Hollins College. George Garrett is currently the Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing Emeritus at the University of Virginia.

(Thanks to Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts for this bio!)

State Symbols

State symbols represent things that are special to a particular state.

symbol \ˈsim-bəl\
noun

Etymology:
in sense 1, from Late Latin symbolum, from Late Greek symbolon, from Greek, token, sign; in other senses from Latin symbolum token, sign, symbol, from Greek symbolon, literally, token of identity verified by comparing its other half, from symballein to throw together, compare, from syn- + ballein to throw — more at devil
Date: 15th century

1: Something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention, especially a material object used to represent something invisible.