Editor of The Hollins Critic and author of The Day I Stopped Dreaming About Barbara Steele and Other Poems; News of the Nile; After Borges; The Greeting: New & Selected Poems; The Book of Changes; Horror Films; The First Man on the Sun; Understanding George Garrett; Just Here, Just Now; Omniphobia; Sallies; What Is Owed the Dead and Not Ideas: Philosophical Poems. He is also the author of many stories, poems, essays, and literary translations. Professor Dillard has received both the O. B. Hardison and Hanes poetry prizes, is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, and was named the 2007 winner of the Association of Writers George Garrett Award, given to an individual who has demonstrated exceptional generosity to writers.
Paul Tillich’s description of the “Existential thinker” in his Theology of Culture comes the closest of anything I’ve found to my idea of what I do in literature, film, and creative classes. Here goes: “The Existential thinker cannot have pupils in the ordinary sense. He cannot communicate any ideas, because they are not the truth he wants to teach. He can only create in his pupil by indirect communication that ‘Existential state’ or personal experience out of which the pupil may think and act.” Got it?
Courses Taught
Creative Writing Tutorial
Advanced Studies in the Novel
Film as Narrative Art
Science Fiction Films: 1950s (Short Term)
Universal Horror Films: 30s-40s (Short Term)
Education
Ph.D., University of Virginia
M.A., University of Virginia
B.A., Roanoke College
Publications & Articles
The Day I Stopped Dreaming About Barbara Steele and Other Poems, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966
News of the Nile, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1971
After Borges, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972
The Greeting: New & Selected Poems, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1981
Just Here, Just Now, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994
A New Pléiade: Selected Poems with Fred Chappell, Kelly Cherry, Brendan Galvin, George Garrett, David R. Slavitt, and Henry Taylor, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998
Sallies, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001
What Is Owed the Dead, Amherst, Massachusetts: Factory Hollow Press, 2011
Not Ideas, Hadley, Massachusetts: Factory Hollow Press, 2014
The Book of Changes, Garden City: Doubleday, 1974
The First Man on the Sun, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983
Omniphobia, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995
Horror Films, New York: Monarch Press/Simon & Schuster, 1976
Understanding George Garrett, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988
The Little Box, a verse translation from the Latin of Cistellaria by Titus Maccius Plautus, in Plautus: The Comedies, Volume 4, edited by David R. Slavitt and Palmer Bovie, Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995, pp. 175-230.
The Sexual Congress, or, Don't Call Me Late for Chow, a verse translation of Ecclesiazusae by Aristophanes, in Aristophanes, 2, edited by David R. Slavitt and Palmer Bovie, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999, pp. 275-357.
