Robert Phillips
(1938–   )

Robert Phillips was born in Milford, Delaware, and educated at Syracuse University, where he received a B.A. (in English) in 1960 and an M.A. (in American literature) in 1964. Phillips spent almost three decades in the advertising business, serving as vice president at two of New York City's most prestigious agencies, Grey Advertising and J. Walter Thompson, before turning to a university career in creative writing. During this period, writing was Phillips's avocation, and despite the hectic pace of advertising he found time to write and publish a large and increasingly distinguished body of poetry, fiction, and criticism. His books included six volumes of poetry, Inner Weather (1966), The Pregnant Man (1978), Running on Empty (1981), Personal Accounts: New & Selected Poems, 1966–1986 (1987); The Wounded Angel (1987), and Breakdown Lane (1994); a volume of short stories, The Land of the Lost Content (1970); and critical works on Louis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (1971), the confessional poets (1973), Denton Welch (1974), and William Goyen (1978).

In 1991, Phillips left New York and the world of advertising to become director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston. Since that date, he has published two additional volumes of poetry, Face to Face (1993) and Breakdown Lane (1994), the latter chosen as a "Notable Book of the Year" by the New York Times Book Review; a collection of stories, Public Landing Revisited (1992); a volume of William Goyen's letters (1995); as well as essays, short stories, and poems in such well-known periodicals as the New Yorker, Paris Review, Hudson Review, Partisan Review, Poetry, Chicago Review, the New Republic, The Nation, Encounter, Massachusetts Review, New American Review, and Southern Review. As executor for the estate of Delmore Schwartz, Phillips has edited and published new editions of Schwartz's poems, verse plays, and letters. "Growing up in a small town," Phillips has written, "has been perhaps the greatest influence on my work. Most of my stories are about provincial characters. Several critics have accused me of a preoccupation with 'the mean, the maimed, the foolish.' True, I am fascinated by the eccentric and the outrageous, especially characters whose 'inner weather' is turbulent."

Phillips currently devotes full time to teaching at the University of Houston, where he won the prestigious Enron Award for outstanding teaching in 1996. He has also received an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters for the body of his published work.

American Center for Artists: Robert Phillips

A brief introduction to Phillips and his work.

Robert Phillips

 

This site is the author’s faculty page at the University of Houston.

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