Remembering Mr. Garrett

By The Daily Progress

Published: May 29, 2008

If he were writing this, George Garrett would shun sentimentality, expunge cliched thinking and generally advise gentle restraint.

But Mr. Garrett isn’t here to write about the loss of a man of letters, isn’t here to mourn the loss of a good man and neighbor.

That is left to lesser mortals.

George Garrett — former poet laureate of Virginia, author of more than 30 books, winner of prestigious awards — died this week. He was 78.

We knew it was coming, in that hazy manner we employ to both acknowledge and deny an unwelcome truth.

Mr. Garrett had been fighting cancer for a long time.

But that did not stop him from being George Garrett.

He continued to take an interest in arts and letters and in the life of Charlottesville, his home since 1984. He continued to send notes of encouragement to fellow writers or to read and comment on their work.

Mr. Garrett was known as a writer’s writer for the depth and breadth of his work, but also as a writer’s mentor for the many people he counseled along the way. Almost no aspiring talent was too small for his attention.

As a teacher, he was formally charged with the task of developing new writers. Mr. Garrett taught writing at the University of Virginia for five years in the 1960s, before going on to other posts at other schools, including Hollins College and Princeton University. He returned to UVa in 1984 as the Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing.

His professional progeny as teacher and mentor are now scattered all over the country — writing, teaching, publishing and making their own distinguished marks on the literary world. Mr. Garrett was instrumental in nurturing the career of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Henry Taylor.

But for all that “worldly success” — the kind that generates lists of awards and honors — he was just as interested in, and supportive of, the talent next door. Charlottesville writers, no matter what level of success they achieved, have known him as unfailingly generous toward their own efforts.

George Garrett was a great writer — one of the most innovative writers of his generation — and a prolific one, adept in genres ranging from novels to poetry, essays to screenplays. Those two achievements alone — quality plus quantity — would distinguish him.

But to those of us who knew him, in person or by reputation, what especially set him apart were his good nature, his generosity, his genuineness.

No aloof artiste here. This was, simply, a good man — who happened to possess an astounding talent.

An echo of that sentiment — about the value of simplicity — appears in one of his poems.

“When I Consider / where I want to go from here, / now at the dead end of myself / and of all the things that I have loved / and hated, it is to the commonwealth / of true simplicity.”

Our commonwealth is richer from his contributions. Richer from his simplicity, richer from the purity of his writing, and richer from the blessing of his friendship.