Eleanor Ross Taylor
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Eleanor Ross Taylor (June 30, 1920 – December 30, 2011) was an American poet who published six collections of verse from 1960 to 2009. This reference gives Taylor's birthdate. Her work received little recognition until 1998, but thereafter received several major poetry prizes. Describing her most recent poetry collection,
Kevin Prufer Kevin D. Prufer (born 1969 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American poet, academic, editor, and essayist. His most recent books are ''How He Loved Them'' ( Four Way Books, 2018),''Churches'' ( Four Way Books, 2014), ''In A Beautiful Country'' ( Four ...
writes, "I cannot imagine the serious reader — poet or not — who could leave ''Captive Voices'' unmoved by the work of this supremely gifted poet who skips so nimbly around our sadnesses and fears, never directly addressing them, suggesting, instead, their complex resistance to summary."


Biography

Eleanor Ross was born in rural North Carolina in 1920. She enrolled at the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina, now the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG or UNC Greensboro) is a public research university in Greensboro, North Carolina. It is part of the University of North Carolina system. UNCG, like all members of the UNC system, is a stand-al ...
, where she studied with the poet
Allen Tate John Orley Allen Tate (November 19, 1899 – February 9, 1979), known professionally as Allen Tate, was an American poet, essayist, social commentator, and poet laureate from 1943 to 1944. Life Early years Tate was born near Winchester, ...
and novelist
Caroline Gordon Caroline Ferguson Gordon (October 6, 1895 – April 11, 1981) was an American novelist and literary critic who, while still in her thirties, received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1932 and an O. Henry Award in 1934. Biography Gordon was born ...
. She graduated in 1940, and worked for a time as a high school English teacher. With the recommendation from Allen Tate, she was admitted to
Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...
for master's work with Donald Davidson. There in 1943 she met
Peter Taylor Peter Taylor may refer to: Arts * Peter Taylor (writer) (1917–1994), American author, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction * Peter Taylor (film editor) (1922–1997), English film editor, winner of an Academy Award for Film Editing Politi ...
, whom she married after a six-week courtship, having broken off her engagement to another man. Panthea Reid has written of their marriage,
Like most women of her generation, Eleanor Ross assumed that marriage and a career were incompatible. Despite precocious beginnings, therefore, Eleanor Ross largely ceased to write when she married the major short story writer and novelist, Peter Taylor. Perhaps she did not want to compete with her husband; certainly she was too busy to follow a dedicated writing regime. She served as wife, mother, housekeeper, hostess, letter-writer, and also family packer, as Peter Taylor nomadically moved from one to another writer-in-residence post.


Poetry

In the 1950s, Peter Taylor was teaching at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, along with the poet
Randall Jarrell Randall Jarrell (May 6, 1914 – October 14, 1965) was an American poet, literary critic, children's author, essayist, and novelist. He was the 11th Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress—a position that now bears the title Poet ...
. Eleanor Taylor had been writing poems for some time, and Jarrell became her critic and sponsor. In 1960, her first poetry collection, ''A Wilderness of Ladies'', was published; Panthea Reid has speculated that Jarrell "probably was behind the publication of Eleanor Taylor's first collection of poems", and Jarrell wrote an appreciative introduction for the volume. This first volume received a middling review from Geoffrey Hartman, who wrote,
That every poem is like to every other is not a fault, at least not in this volume. It is the price Mrs. Taylor pays for achieving a style with her first book. There is, miraculously, no pastiche. The fault I do find is related to her wish to write directly from the middle of other minds.
In 1972, her second book of poetry, ''Welcome Eumenides'', was published by George Braziller, Inc.;
Richard Howard Richard Joseph Howard (October 13, 1929 – March 31, 2022; adopted as Richard Joseph Orwitz) was an American poet, literary critic, essayist, teacher, and translator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and was a graduate of Columbia University, w ...
, a poet who was then editing the Braziller poetry series, wrote a foreword for the volume. In her ''New York Times'' review, the poet
Adrienne Rich Adrienne Cecile Rich ( ; May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "th ...
commented that, "What I find compelling in the poems of Eleanor Taylor, besides the authority and originality of her language, is the underlying sense of how the conflicts of imaginative and intelligent women have driven them on, lashed them into genius or madness, ...". Taylor's third collection, ''New and Selected Poems'' (1983), was published by a small press run by Stuart T. Wright, and apparently received very little distribution. Subscription required for online access. Her next collection, ''Days Going, Days Coming Back'' (1991), was chosen by Dave Smith for the University of Utah Press poetry series. In his review of this volume, Richard Howard summarized Taylor's poetry,
Eleanor Ross Taylor devised, in her startling first poems over thirty years ago, and practices still, for all the modesty of her address, a tough modernist poetics of fragmentation and erasure, the verse rarely indulging in recurrent pattern or recognizable figure, the lines usually short and sharp in their resonance, gists and surds of a discourse allusive to the songs and sayings of a largely southern community dispersed among Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida and readiest (or at least, most eloquent) to speak in the tongues of remembered or imagined Others."
Dave Smith subsequently selected both of Taylor's ensuing collections, ''Late Leisure: Poems'' (1999) and ''Captive Voices: New and Selected Poems, 1960–2008'' (2009), for the "Southern Messenger" poetry series of the Louisiana State University Press.


Affinities and influences

Taylor's originality has been emphasized by several critics writing of her work; thus Lynn Emanuel writes of ''Captive Voices'', "It is a complex and unexpected convergence of the influences of modernism and a wholly original, native genius. Reading it one suddenly realizes that one is in the presence of an American classic." In a 2002 interview with Taylor,
Susan Settlemyre Williams Susan is a feminine given name, from Persian "Susan" (lily flower), from Egyptian '' sšn'' and Coptic ''shoshen'' meaning "lotus flower", from Hebrew ''Shoshana'' meaning "lily" (in modern Hebrew this also means "rose" and a flower in general), ...
proposed
Emily Dickinson Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massach ...
,
Marianne Moore Marianne Craig Moore (November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) was an American modernist poet, critic, translator, and editor. Her poetry is noted for formal innovation, precise diction, irony, and wit. Early life Moore was born in Kirkwood ...
, and
Elizabeth Bishop Elizabeth Bishop (February 8, 1911 – October 6, 1979) was an American people, American poet and short-story writer. She was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950, the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1956, the N ...
as possible influences, but Taylor herself acknowledged
Edna St. Vincent Millay Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950) was an American lyrical poet and playwright. Millay was a renowned social figure and noted feminist in New York City during the Roaring Twenties and beyond. She wrote much of he ...
as the poet she had read enthusiastically as a student, and who had "made me feel that poetry was contemporary and could relate to me right now, in the way that you know that all those wonderful heroines of poetry and heroes do, ...".


Taylor's "southernness"

Erika Howsare Erika may refer to: Arts and Entertainment * Hayasaka Erika (''Megatokyo)'' * Erika (''Friends'') * Erika (''Pokémon'') * Erika (''Underworld'') * Erika Itsumi ''(Girls und Panzer)'' * ''Erika'' (film), a 1971 Italian thriller film * "E ...
discerns a regional quality to Taylor's verse. She associates Taylor with "a literary circle that includes figures such as Randall Jarrell,
Robert Lowell Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the ''Mayflower''. His family, past and present, were important subjects i ...
, and
Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the liter ...
" and writes, "The southernness of her background makes her tend to rein in her formidable intellect and biting wit with an uneasy deference to form and convention. This tension may be witnessed in her use of both metrical and nonmetrical lines. Just when the organization of her poems seems on the verge of wavering, she returns to the restraint with which most of them begin." Eric Gudas writes, "The importance of region in Taylor's work simply cannot be overstated. These poems are grounded in the consciousness of a woman whose familiarity with Southern history, culture, and landscape is profound." Gudas discerns a tension that "has everything to do with the history of white women in the male-dominated, white supremacist South; and it is embodied in the music and rhythms of the poems, wherein a restrained, almost genteel tone is shot through with "a passion always threatening to go undisciplined with the characteristic intensity of her native South" (in the aptly worded jacket copy of her last book)." He illustrates his point with a close reading of Taylor's poem, "Retired Pilot Watches Plane":


Critical studies

Jean Valentine __NOTOC__ Jean Valentine (April 27, 1934December 29, 2020) was an American poet and the New York State Poet Laureate from 2008 to 2010. Her poetry collection, ''Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965–2003'', was awarded the 2004 N ...
edited a collection of essays about Taylor's poetry that was published in 2001. Eric Gudas has written a doctoral dissertation about Taylor's life and poetry.


Awards

In 1998, she was awarded the
Shelley Memorial Award The Shelley Memorial Award of the Poetry Society of America, was established by the will of Mary P. Sears, and named after the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. The prize is given to a living American poet selected with reference to genius and need, and is ...
by the
Poetry Society of America The Poetry Society of America is a literary organization founded in 1910 by poets, editors, and artists. It is the oldest poetry organization in the United States. Past members of the society have included such renowned poets as Witter Bynner, Ro ...
, which honors one or two poets each year "with reference to genius and need". She received the 2000
Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry The Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry is an annual prize, administered by the ''Sewanee Review'' and the University of the South, awarded to a writer who has had a substantial and distinguished career. It was established through a bequ ...
, which honors a "substantial and distinguished career". In 2009, she was elected to the
Fellowship of Southern Writers The Fellowship of Southern Writers is an American literary organization that celebrates the creative vitality of Southern writing as the mirror of a distinctive and cherished regional culture. Its fellowships and awards draw attention to outstandi ...
and was awarded the Carole Weinstein Poetry Prize. In March 2010, her volume ''Captive Voices: New and Selected Poems, 1960–2008'' received the
William Carlos Williams Award The William Carlos Williams Award is given out by the Poetry Society of America for a poetry book published by a small press, non-profit, or university press. The award is endowed by the family and friends of Geraldine Clinton Little, a poet and ...
for the year's best volume of poetry from a small or a university press. On April 13, 2010 the
Poetry Foundation The Poetry Foundation is an American literary society that seeks to promote poetry and lyricism in the wider culture. It was formed from ''Poetry'' magazine, which it continues to publish, with a 2003 gift of $200 million from philanthropist Rut ...
announced that Taylor would receive the 2010
Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize The Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize is awarded annually by The Poetry Foundation, which also publishes ''Poetry'' magazine. The prize was established in 1986 by Ruth Lilly. It honors a living U.S. poet whose "lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordina ...
, which honors poets whose "lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition"; the prize was $100,000.


Family

Eleanor and Peter Taylor had two children, Katherine Baird (b. 1947) and Peter Ross (b. 1955). Peter Taylor died in 1994. Peter Ross Taylor is a poet himself;
Katherine Baird Taylor Katherine, also spelled Catherine, and other variations are feminine names. They are popular in Christian countries because of their derivation from the name of one of the first Christian saints, Catherine of Alexandria. In the early Chris ...
died in 2001. After many years living in
Charlottesville, Virginia Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Ch ...
, Eleanor Ross Taylor last resided in
Falls Church, Virginia Falls Church is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 14,658. Falls Church is included in the Wash ...
.News release
"Eleanor Ross Taylor Awarded 2010 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize"
, April 13, 2010, The Poetry Foundation, retrieved June 9, 2010.


Poetry collections

* * * * * *


References


Further reading

* Blakely's reminiscence of a long acquaintance with Taylor and her poetry. * 1989 interview with the Taylors.


External links

* * * Links to the ten poems of Taylor's that were reprinted in the May, 2010 issue of ''
Poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
''. * Links to Taylor's poems "Disappearing Act" and "Yes?". * Taylor's poem, "Where Somebody Died". {{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Eleanor Ross 1920 births 2011 deaths University of North Carolina at Greensboro alumni Writers from Charlottesville, Virginia American women poets 20th-century American poets 20th-century American women writers People from Norwood, North Carolina 21st-century American poets 21st-century American women writers Poets from Virginia Poets from North Carolina