Henry Taylor was dining in a restaurant near Washington, D.C., in April 1986, when his wife came in - even though the restaurant is a 75-minute drive from their home in Lincoln, Va., and he hadn't said where he was going.
"All of a sudden Frannie walked in; scared me at first," he said. "But I asked her what she was doing there, and she said she came to tell me something." `Well, what was that?'
" `You got the Pulitzer Prize.'
" `That is not amusing,' I said. `That is not a good joke.' "
Thus, Henry S. Taylor, a former University of Utah assistant professor of English, learned he had won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
His astonishment could not have been greater, because Louisiana State University Press - which published his winning book, "The Flying Change" - had not told him it nominated the volume for this most prestigious of literary awards.
In winning, he joined the ranks of such noted poets as Robert Frost, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Amy Lowell, Stephen Vincent Benet, Conrad Aiken and Sylvia Plath.
"I was only a Utah person for about three years, '68 to '71," Taylor said in a telephone interview. Asked what brought him to the Beehive State, he said it was "good luck."
"I was teaching at a small college in southwestern Virginia, Roanoke College." In his second year there, he decided he wanted a position where he could concentrate more on his specialties - contemporary poetry and creative writing - and less on teaching freshman English.
"I applied to a large number of institutions that year that were announcing openings in areas like that. The University of Utah was one of the quickest to respond and ask me to come for an interview."
Once in Salt Lake City, he said: "I was extremely taken by the place. I liked what I saw very much. I liked the people and I liked the setting and felt fortunate to land a job."
He stayed three years, teaching poetry-writing workshops, introduction to creative writing and traditional literary courses like "Elements of Poetry and Contemporary American Poetry." He is remembered by former students and associates as one of the most brilliant teachers in the English department.
"He was a Southern gentleman who was unique on campus," recalled one. She said he'd dress in a white suit that looked like a gentleman farmer's.
"He had a photographic memory and he could quote long passages of poems. They just stayed in his mind after he read them. And so it was an incredible aid to teaching."
Taylor is a 48-year-old man, soft-spoken with a slight Southern accent. He recalled that, "For three years actually after my first year (in Utah) I ran the summer writer's conference."
When Taylor left the U., it was to return to his beloved Virginia.
He is teaching at the American University, Washington, D.C., and lives within walking distance of his boyhood home in northern Virginia.
"It's the only place I can call home, and I still like it very much," he said.
Would he ever return to Utah?
If someone asked him to attend a writing workshop, for example, "I'll come back, sure," he said.
But he'd never move back on a long-term basis. "My situation here looks kind of permanent," he said.
He is a co-director of the graduate creative writing program at American University and teaches the advanced poetry workshop once a year. He also teaches a couple of classes required of master's of fine arts candidates - the art of literary journalism and a seminar in literary translation.
In addition to his teaching duties, "poems come along, too, from time time to time," Taylor said. He expects to have a new book of poems in two or three years.
Taylor's wife, Frannie, is deeply involved in her work in a CPA firm in Reston, Va. They have two sons, Thomas, 19, and Richard, 14.
It was Thomas who first learned that Taylor had won the Pulitzer.
"I had gone out to dinner with a friend of mine," Taylor said. "He and I were planning a trip to France." They purchased their tickets and then went to a restaurant to make plans.
Frannie happened to stop by Taylor's parents' home, just when Thomas called from the school he was attending. He said he thought his English teacher had said his daddy had won the Pulitzer Prize.
Frannie called the Washington Post, which had a list of Pulitzer winners, and, sure enough, it was true. She didn't know where Taylor was having dinner, but knew he was visiting his friend. She was determined to break the good news to him.
"She tracked us down by talking to some friends of his (the man he was with), and his parents, and finding out where he usually ate." She telephoned the restaurant, had the friend paged, talked to him on the phone and swore him to secrecy.
Then she took off for Springfield, Va., a suburb of Washington.
"So we were talking along about this and that," when Frannie appeared.
After she finally convinced him she wasn't kidding, even the restaurant owner got into the celebration.
In the four years since then, the dust has settled, he said. "I'm pretty much back to what I've been doing since I left Utah, really."