The Spy heard the sad news that former Washington College professor and nationally known author Robert Day passed away in his native state of Kansas this morning.
Bob Day had been the driving force behind Washington College’s highly-regarded literary programs in the 1970s and 1980s, bringing to the Eastern Shore some of the most distinguished writers of the era, including Allen Ginsberg, Katherine Anne Porter, William Stafford, Toni Morrison, Joseph Brodsky, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Anthony Burgess, Edward Albee, poet Billy Collins and William Kennedy.
The Spy staff will be preparing a more expansive tribute to Bob over the next few days. In the meantime, we thought our readers would enjoy our interview with him from 2010 when he talked to us about his life of teaching and writing.
David Roach (W.C. Class of 1971) says
I had the privilege to meet Bob Day when he arrived in Chestertown, a Kansas cowboy on the Eastern Shore. I was a senior at Washington College, and Bob, with his boundless energy, appointed me President of the Writers’ Union; I also edited the “Broadside” poetry series. We became friends that year and were friends long after I graduated. I never took a course he taught, yet he taught me more than anyone else at Washington College.
Bob Day could have been a successful writer and novelist, but what he chose to do – his passion – was to teach. I am a better person for having known him.
Will Phipps, Class of 95 says
Washington College, for me, was about coming of age with a few mentors that tolerated me, steered me and cared for me.
Bob Day challenged my ideas and promoted my entrepreneurial spirit. Once, by allowing me to open a cafe on The Lit House Porch: THE LIT HOUSE CAFE—Friday’s we were open and we had student art, student live music, poetry readings, tea, coffee, pastry, wine and an eclectic group of professors and students away from the classroom gathered together having fun —it offered a further sense of community.
I remember walking through Chestertown with Prof Bob Day with our Lit class, taking notes on what we saw, whom we met, what we did, etc. It was a silly but fun walk about.
He then asked us to write about that walk in the writing-style of a few different writers whom we had been studying, without naming who those authors were. We had been studying various writers’ uses of literary devises , character development, etc. The grade was based on how and if Prof Day could recognize that writers style via our interpretation.
That was my favorite paper of my college experience.
I see you in France drinking a burgundy and laughing that laugh. Cheers and thank you. Adios compadre