Craig, Raima, Mark & Milena

Craig Williamson
501 Harvard Ave.
Swarthmore, PA 19081
610-544-5196
cwillia1@swarthmore.edu
 

2021

I’m sorry I can’t attend the reunion this year because I’m still teaching full time and have classes all day on Friday. Perhaps there will be a Zoom session when non-travelers can participate. I teach a wide variety of subjects from Beowulf to Lord of the Rings. My latest book is a 1250 pp. poetic translation of The Complete Old English Poems (31,000 lines of poetry), about which one reviewer has written: “Williamson has accomplished something rare and remarkable, a deep and deeply satisfying transformation of an entire body of literature . . . For the sheer scale of its ambition, the book is the literary equivalent of crossing the Atlantic in a canoe, or riding a unicycle across America—exhausting to contemplate, exhilarating to complete.” I’m currently working on a poetic translation of The Book of Psalms from the Hebrew text, a book on the importance of riddles and riddlic motifs in Tolkien’s fiction, and a book of my new and selected poems.

Family news: My wife Raima Evan has just retired from her position as a dean at Bryn Mawr College. Her latest short story appeared last year in the Southern Humanities Review. Our son Marc is pursuing a Ph.D. in Astrophysics at New York University. Our daughter Milena is doing a Ph.D. in Poetry (Critical and Creative) at Queen’s University, Belfast and has won numerous poetry prizes, including the Seamus Heaney Poetry Prize Fellowship and the Eric Gregory Award for best UK poets under 30. Of my daughters from a previous marriage, Telory teaches Theater and Dance at Missouri State, and Caden helps to run a fashion company in New York City.

I often think of my days at WLHS and occasionally write poems about them. One of my books, African Wings, is dedicated to Valle Brokes, my junior year English teacher; she now lives close by, and we occasionally have tea together. I’ll miss seeing you all.

2013

Recent news:  It's now 2013 and I'm happy to still be teaching and writing.  My latest books are translations of Beowulf and Other Old English Poems and also A Feast of Creatures: Anglo-Saxon Riddle-Songs (available on Amazon).   If you go to youtube and type in Williamson Beowulf, you can see a clip of me talking to students about Beowulf and reading from my translation and also chanting a passage in Old English (the English language in about 800).  In this year of the Hobbit movie, I was invited by Warner Brothers to submit some riddles of my own to start up a Hobbit Riddles Website.  If you want to see them, go to
http://apps.warnerbros.com/thehobbit/riddles/us/  or just google Warner Brothers Hobbit Riddles

where you can view many riddles and try to guess them and even submit one of your own

My 16 riddles will pop up randomly but in order to see them all you can
Click View a Riddle
Then click All Riddles
Then click Featured
Use the little interior scroll bar to scroll down to the riddles under my name
Click each riddle to see it (my name and books also pop up above the answer bar)

It's been a thrill to be part of this, and I'm currently writing a book on the importance of riddles to Tolkien's fiction.  I'm also working with a Hebrew professor and Rabbi at Swarthmore to translate the psalms into modern poems.  It's a fascinating project.

I love hearing about all of your lives and hope to make the next reunion.

2007

After graduating from WLHS, I went to Stanford where I studied English Literature and wrote rock and roll songs for a college singing group. I took my M.A. at Harvard and then went to work for the American Friends Service Committee in Tanzania, East Africa, where I learned Swahili, taught village bookkeeping, and wrote a book of poems, African Wings (with a foreword by Alan Paton). I returned to the States and did a Ph.D. in Medieval English Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. I began teaching at Swarthmore College in 1972 where I've been ever since. I've served as Dept. chair, Director of the College Honors Program, and Associate Provost. Now I have an endowed chair and teach all the subjects I love--Old and Middle English (Beowulf and Chaucer), Poetry Writing, Film and Literature, History of the English Language, and the fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien. I'm married to Raima Evan who is an Assistant Dean at Bryn Mawr College and also has a PH.D. in English and writes stories. We have two children, Marc (14) and Milena (12). Marc does math and chess; Milena does poetry and flute. In 2001 we won a bidding war on a great Arts & Crafts house with a poem I wrote and have renovated it in the original style and added lots of Stickley furniture; the house was featured in vol. 48 of American Bungalow magazine. I also have two children from an earlier marriage: Telory, who has just finished a Ph.D. in Theater at Stanford, and Caden, who is Human Resources Director for Gucci in the UK. I've kept up with Bill Butz and with Mrs. Brokes (who taught me poetry) over the years. I'm sorry I can't make the reunion this year (I have to take Marc to the World Chess Open), but I hope to get to the next one.