Associate Professor Robert Wood always dressed up for the first day of class. It was, his colleagues say, his way of showing his respect for the students who came to him to learn about classical literature and film.

His dedication to students even extended to learning Italian so that he could better teach a class called “The Age of Galileo.”

“For ten ‘generations’ of Tech students, Bob brought news of Dante and DaVinci and Galileo and Shakespeare and exposed them to the masterworks of classical Hollywood,” said LMC Associate Professor Blake Leland, who worked with Wood for nearly four decades.

Wood, a poet and scholar who retired as an associate professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication (LMC) in May 2025 after 50 years of service with Georgia Tech, passed away recently.

“He will be missed,” Leland said. “I will miss him.”

Wood, who had a Ph.D. in English and a master’s degree in mathematics, arrived at Georgia Tech in 1974 after two years as a math instructor at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute.

A poet and specialist in Renaissance drama, the science and culture of the renaissance, and film and television, he was the author of books including Some Necessary Questions of the Play: A Stage-Centered Analysis of Shakespeare's 'Hamlet’; the 2014 Georgia Author of the Year award-winning book of poetry, The Awkward Poses of Others; Alms for Oblivion, and a chapbook — a short book of poetry — called Gorizia Notebook.

His poems were published in outlets including Blue Fifth Review, Jelly Bucket, Jabberwock Review, Sojourn, and Prairie Schooner.

At Georgia Tech, he taught classes ranging from English Composition to Shakespeare to Intro to Film to Theater Production. He also helped establish LMC’s Film Studies program, recalled his retired colleague, Professor Emeritus Jay Telotte.

The two spent many hours together, lugging heavy projection equipment to other buildings with enough space for film screenings, Telotte said.

“And when, as often happened, we encountered technical problems — a sound system not working, a screen that wouldn’t go down, a projector bulb suddenly blown, or even an auditorium or projection booth that was locked when it wasn’t supposed to be — Bob would typically entertain the student audience with his wealth of jokes while I went looking for help,” Telotte said. “My sense, and probably that of many students as well, is that his other calling was neither drama nor poetry, but stand-up comedy, at which he was very good.”

For years, Wood and other LMC faculty members met regularly as a writing group they called the “Not Dead Yet Poets Society.” Some members collaborated on a book of poetry, On Occasion: Four Poets, One Year.

“He was a generous and thoughtful reader of poetry and often found just the right word needed to turn a poem on its head,” said JC Reilly, director of creative writing curricula in LMC. “He was kind and funny in a quiet, snarky way, and he made me — all of us — a better writer. “

Travis Denton, associate director of Poetry@Tech, called Wood “a staple in the Atlanta poetry community.”

“There’s no doubt Bob made a huge impact on his many students over the years, sharing his love of poetry, and he served as a force and advocate for the craft in the School,” Denton said.

Wood was one of the first faculty members Professor Carol Senf met when she joined the faculty in what was then Georgia Tech’s English Department.

“Bob never failed to charm and delight though his wit was sometimes so subtle that it snuck up on me,” Senf said. “Appropriately for a Shakespearean, he was a true Renaissance man. A teacher who genuinely loved his students, he was also a very fine poet, and a connoisseur of art, music, and film.”

Senf said Wood adored his family, evident in a series of poems inspired by his granddaughter:

No footprint mars
her lunar wondering,
the first philosophy.

“There are terrible beauties as Yeats has shown us, but the beauty of a child’s first exploration of the world renews us all,” Wood wrote in a “Writer’s Statement on Beauty” published with the poems. “My Thora poems began when I heard a speaker quote Aristotle as saying, ‘Philosophy begins in wonder.’”

Reilly said she’s grateful Wood left behind such a trove of poetry and other writing.

“I am heartbroken that he’s gone, and I’m really going to miss him,” she said. “He left us way too soon, but he lives on in his poems, and I keep them close.”