I was an English major at Colo. A&M 1955-57 and later graduated with a Master’s before going to Iowa’s Writing Workshop as a Ph.D. student. The dates indicate I went to class in “Old Main,” the wonderful stone castle on College Ave.  I can still name many of the professors at that time but the one I would like to mention was Dr. Aurelia Harlan, a figure both friendly and imposing. In a survey course in English literature, she read the opening of Beowulf in Old English, work and a language I had never heard of. I still remember the resonance of those sounds as they bounced around the high-ceilinged Victorian room. Later, that thrilling introduction helped me get through a year of Anglo-Saxon at Iowa, a requirement that W. D. Snodgrass told me, pushed him into the MFA program rather than the Ph.D.

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