Henry Taylor, prize-winning poet with an eye on rural life, dies at 82

He won a Pulitzer for “The Flying Change,” a 1985 collection reflecting his love of horses and his upbringing in Virginia hunt country.


Poet Henry Taylor was a longtime professor at American University in Washington. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1985 collection “The Flying Change.” (Mooshe Taylor/LSU Press)

By Harrison Smith
November 22, 2024 at 8:29 p.m. EST

Henry Taylor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet who drew on his upbringing in rural Northern Virginia — galloping on horseback, riding a combine through the fields — to write exquisitely crafted verses about wild places, the inevitability of change and what he called the “consequences of ignorant choices,” died Oct. 13 at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was 82. ... His death was announced this month by American University in Washington, which did not provide a cause. Mr. Taylor was a professor emeritus of literature at the school, where he taught for 32 years and codirected the MFA program in creative writing.

A formalist poet with a love of sonnets, limericks and other traditional forms, Mr. Taylor was roundly praised for his technical dexterity and attention to rhyme and meter. Former U.S. poet laureate Ted Kooser, a fellow Pulitzer winner, once said that Mr. Taylor had “never published a poem that was not perfectly imagined, perfectly shaped, perfectly paced, and perfectly moving and true.”

Although Mr. Taylor headed west in retirement, living outside Seattle before settling in Santa Fe a decade ago, his work remained rooted in the hunt-country landscape of his youth. He populated his verses with horses, deer, tractors and silos; published a book of poems, “Crooked Run” (2006), centered on a stream near his childhood home in Loudoun County; and used country life as a setting for vivid but unsentimental explorations of loss and freedom, life and death.

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The oldest of four children, Henry Splawn Taylor was born in Lincoln, Virginia, just outside Leesburg, on June 21, 1942. His family had lived in the area since about 1780, although his mother, Mary Splawn Taylor, was a newcomer from Texas: A schoolteacher who helped advocate for racial integration at county schools and libraries, she was the daughter of a former Interstate Commerce Commission chairman and president of the University of Texas. ... Mr. Taylor grew up learning to ride horses and read poems from his father, Thomas, a farmer-turned-teacher. “For years, I cared more about horses than anything else; then I grew up. But I still care about horses,” he told The Post.

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By Harrison Smith
Harrison Smith is a reporter on The Washington Post's obituaries desk. Since joining the obituaries section in 2015, he has profiled big-game hunters, fallen dictators and Olympic champions. He sometimes covers the living as well, and previously co-founded the South Side Weekly, a community newspaper in Chicago.follow on X @harrisondsmith