Emeritus Professor of English at KSUA authors his ninth book

May 18—ASHTABULA — Roger Craik, emeritus professor of English at Kent State University Ashtabula, is the author of his ninth poetry book, "In Other Days."

The book will be launched in September at Amsterdam University.

In the 74-page collection, Craik writes about several experiences and places, including family, art, history, travel, Poland, Amsterdam, England and locally — Geneva State Park on a very rainy day.

Craik came up with the title from one of his poems, which has the words "in other days" in it. But he said the words actually come from London native, and poet, Walter de la Mare, whose work he enjoys.

On the back cover of "In Other Days," the American poet, Donald Revell, says of the collection, "Every moment of Roger Craik's 'In Other Days' is an event of inviolable music, golden, as the best of music always is, with both finitude and duration."

One of the pieces, "Exile," is a four-part poem about a Russian painter who spends four years studying art in Paris, then has to go back to Russia for an arranged marriage, surprising the reader with a quick exit in the middle of nowhere.

Not all of the poems are in four parts. One, "Lewes, 1966," only has seven lines.

Craik is spending his retirement traveling, writing poetry and fulfilling speaking engagements. Not one to let grass grow under his feet, Craik is in the midst of gathering poems for another book he's titled, "Alightings."

Several of Craik's full-length poetry books have been translated into different languages, including a book written in tribute of his late mother, "In Memory of Wendy Ann Craik," which has been translated into Belarusian by Professors Lyuba Pervushina and Ivan Charota at the University of Minsk in Belarus, a small land-locked country that was once part of the USSR.

One of his favorite books is one he didn't write. Rather, his parents illustrated and colored it for him as a young boy — a facsimile of Robert Browning's "The Pied Piper of Hamelin, A Child's Story."

His parents, Tom and Wendy Craik, gave it to him on his sixth birthday in 1962, when he was considered old enough to enjoy it. He remembers enjoying "The Pied Piper" being read to him as well as sensing his parents' relish in reading aloud and their pausing to point to the illustrations.

Several years ago, with his parents' permission, Craik made a copy of the treasured book in Nottingham, England, and began sending it out to friends as an email attachment.

"Everyone who saw it loved it," he said. "I never make any money on my books because I give copies to all my friends."

Tom Craik, who died in 2017, penned Browning's words, nothing added or deleted, but the illustrations come entirely from his parents' imagination. They were 32 and 25 years old at the time.

That book was translated in Bulgarian, as well as Romanian. It has been exhibited at the Gaudeamus International Book Fair in Bucharest. In fall 2017, "Pied Piper" was translated in Russian, coming out in Minsk, Belarus.

Craik's poetry has appeared in several national poetry journals, such as "The Formalist," "Fulcrum," "The Literary Review" and "The Atlanta Review."

English by birth and educated at the universities of Reading and Southampton, Craik has worked as a journalist, TV critic and chess columnist. Before coming to the U.S. in 1991, he worked in Turkish universities and was awarded a Beineke Fellowship to Yale in 1990.

He's widely traveled, having visited North Yemen, Egypt, South Africa, Tibet, Nepal, Japan, Amsterdam, Bulgaria — where he taught during spring 2007 on a Fulbright Scholarship to Sofia University — and, more recently, the United Arab Emirates, Austria and Croatia.

The pandemic kept Craik homebound for 2020-21, and he spent his time watching the birds, with joy, he said. This past winter, he finally was able to travel to Amsterdam for vacation.

Retired or not, Craik says poetry is his passion. He writes for at least an hour over coffee each morning before breakfast.

But wherever Craik travels, Ashtabula is still his home base.

"I am grateful to the late KSUA Dean John Mahan for hiring me in 1991 and enabling me to have this wonderful life in America," he said. "I mention him at all my talks. I'm so fortunate."