Joseph Hobson ‘Joe’ Harrison III, poet, editor and teacher, dies

Joseph Hobson “Joe” Harrison III, a poet, editor and teacher who enjoyed memorizing sports statistics, died of brain cancer Feb. 13 at his Cedonia home. He was 66.

Born in Richmond, Virginia, he was the son of Joseph Hobson Harrison Jr., an Auburn University history professor, and Olivia Johnston Hart, a school board member.

He was a 1975 graduate of Auburn High School in Alabama and earned an English degree at Yale University in Connecticut, where he studied with the poet Harold Bloom. He later attended Auburn University in Alabama and received a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University.

Mr. Harrison “was on the fast track to an elite academic life. … Then, at the beginning of this year at the age of 33, he withdrew from a Hopkins program,” said a 1991 Sun story about his decision to devote his life to writing poetry.

“I came to the decision that the best way for me to write poetry wasn’t to be an academic, and that I was having difficulty serving two masters,” he said. “I’m not saying that it’s impossible for people to do both. It just seemed impossible for me.”

“Joe was a scholar’s scholar,” said his former wife, Carla Stallings Harrison. “He was a devoted friend and had people coming from all over the world to see him after his diagnosis. Through ups and down he never gave up on anyone.”

Mr. Harrison was senior American editor of The Waywiser Press. He founded its annual prize, named after Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Anthony Hecht, in 2006.

“Joe championed the work of younger poets. He had a personal investment in other poets and their work,” said Dora Malech, a Hopkins associate professor and poet.

“Joe was just the warmest person you could meet,” she said. “He was larger than life. He had a distinctive accent and deep voice. His conversation was full of facts, maybe about football, literature or politics.”

Mr. Harrison published four volumes of poetry with Waywiser: “Someone Else’s Name” (2003), “Identity Theft” (2008), “Shakespeare’s Horse” (2015) and “Sometimes I Dream that I Am Not Walt Whitman” (2020). He was also published by Syllabic Press.

“He was a famous raconteur. He loved to tell long, elaborate stories, and often found the turns in his own plots so funny that he was incapacitated by laughter, and would have to start over,” said Mary Jo Salter, a friend and former Hopkins faculty member.

“Joe was very intense and a knowledgeable guy on baseball, the Ravens, American politics and foreign policy,” said a friend, Andrew Murr. “Anytime you wanted to touch on Cyrus Vance [former U.S. secretary of state], “] J.D. Vance [U.S. senator from Ohio] and [Charles] “Dazzy” Vance [a baseball player], Joe was your boy.”

Mr. Harrison embraced baseball, football, film, and American politics.

“He was a marvelous, multitasking host, and grilled some of the best steaks I’ve ever eaten,” Ms. Salter said. “He wrote in rhyme, mostly, and meter, always, and when he was told his work had elements in common with [poets] Anthony Hecht or Richard Wilbur he was delighted.”

She also said Mr. Harrison had a nearly photographic memory.

Related Articles

• News Obituaries | Carol A. Carr-Meinecke, mental health advocate and counselor, dies

• News Obituaries | William ‘Bill’ Higgins, founder of Bill’s Music in Catonsville who offered credit to young musicians, dies

• News Obituaries | James P. Salmon, Maryland Special Court of Appeals judge, dies

• News Obituaries | Howard Jay Needle, Maryland delegate in the 1970s, dies

• News Obituaries | Lefty Driesell, colorful Hall of Fame coach who elevated University of Maryland men’s basketball, dies

“He could quote passages at will by all of his favorite poets, who ranged from Horace to Shakespeare to Dickinson. When he gave his own poetry readings, he barely glanced at the page: he declaimed his lines by heart in a unique Southern accent — an amalgam of Virginia, Alabama, and I don’t know where else — while training his eyes directly on his audience.”

He recently received an advance copy of his “Collected Poems” from Waywiser.

“Although he could no longer read, he was delighted to hold it in his hands,” Ms. Salter said.

Survivors include his sisters, Helen Harrison, of Silver Spring, Elizabeth Harrison White, of Auburn, Alabama, and Mary Olivia Harrison, of Atlanta; and a brother, Robert Harrison, of Austin, Texas. His 2006 marriage to Carla Stallings, a retired psychiatric nurse, ended in divorce. They remained friends.

A memorial service is planned for the spring.