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.

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!)

  About   Site Map   Privacy Policy