Robert Phillips Obituary

Robert S. Phillips
1938-2022
Robert Schaeffer Phillips, an acclaimed writer and former professor at the University of Houston, passed away on January 21, 2022.
Born in Milford, Delaware in 1938., he was the son of Katheryn Schaeffer Phillips and Thomas Allen Phillips, Sr. He was educated in Delaware public schools and received B.A. and M.A. degrees in both journalism and English literature from Syracuse University. For a time, he remained at Syracuse, where he was Assistant Director of Admissions and taught English.
He then moved on to New York City, where he had an award-winning career in advertising. He was a copywriter and vice president with Benton & Bowles, BBDO, and J. Walter Thompson. In the early 1970s he was creative director of Grey Advertising in Düsseldorf, West Germany.
Best known as a creative writer, he published seven books of poetry, perhaps most notably The Pregnant Man (Doubleday), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, three books of short stories, and 20 volumes of essays, anthologies, and belles lettres. He was also known as an accomplished interviewer. Eight of his interviews with poets and writers were published in a volume, The Madness of Art (Syracuse University Press, 2003); conducted over a 20-year period, these included Philips Larkin, Karl Shapiro, William Styron, and Joyce Carol Oates.
Among his many prizes were an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the George Arents Award, Syracuse University's highest honor for alumni. He was poetry editor of Texas Review and a council member of the Texas Institute of Letters. He was literary executor for the American poets Delmore Schwartz and Karl Shapiro. As a town resident, he founded and ran the Katonah Poetry Series for more than 20 years.
From 1991 - 2009 he was a member of the creative writing faculty at the University of Houston, where he was director of the writing program from 1991 - 1996 and received the Outstanding Teacher Award. His predecessor was the late Donald Barthelme.
He was a past chairman of the Poets' Prize in New York City and a member of the Players' Club.
He is survived by his beloved wife, Judith Anne Bloomingdale; his son Graham Van Buren Phillips, daughter-in-law, Karen Dammeyer Phillips, and grandson, Chase MacIntyre Phillips, of Weddington, North Carolina; two brothers and a sister. A memorial service is being planned.

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Published by Houston Chronicle on Jan. 30, 2022.

Memories and Condolences
for Robert Phillips

4 Entries

Charles Menefee

March 23, 2022

Professor Phillips was one of the best teachers I ever had. I always appreciated how he made time for every aspiring poet in the room, no matter how rough the poem. Everyone learned something from his critique of each poem and from every insight he shared.

Daniel C. Rifenburgh

February 4, 2022

I want to note that during his tenure at the University of Houston Bob was a real champion of students in the Creative Writing Program and a true friend. I also note that Bob's poetry is actually written with the notion of pleasing the reader in mind, something many writers seem to have forgotten. His work is full of warmth, humor and grace, and will be treasured for generations. We will miss our dear friend Robert Phillips.

Richard Foerster

February 2, 2022

Bob Phillips was a dear friend of mine for 45 years, an early mentor and promoter of my work as a poet. I was often a guest for dinner at his home in Katonah or for social gatherings after the readings he hosted at the Katonah Library. After I moved from Westchester County, NY, to Maine and he to Texas, we´d call and correspond regularly and meet occasionally over the years in Manhattan to attend the annual Poets´ Prize ceremonies, for which we were both judges. It was my habit to call him on his birthday. Today, February 2, is his birthday. I did not call. Somehow I knew what I feared was coming had indeed come. Judith, Graham--my condolences.

Clay Reynolds

January 31, 2022

Bob and I became instant friends upon our first meeting at a writer's conference in Clear Lake. We shared a sardonic attitude toward a lot of contemporary poetry and exchanged wonderful anecdotes about some of our more outré acquaintances in the creative writing business. Bob was known as a wonderful poet, of course, but he was also a natty dresser, a gentleman, and a devotee of some of the finer things in life. He will be missed.

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