Robert W. Watson (December 26, 1925 - February 27, 2012) was an American poet and academic. He was born in

Passaic, New Jersey Passaic ( or ) is a City (New Jersey), city in Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the city was List of municipalities in New Jersey, the state's 16th-most-populous ...

. He attended

Williams College Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim ...

and

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

, where he received a doctoral degree in 1955. From 1953 to his retirement in 1987, he served as a member of the English Department at the

University of North Carolina at Greensboro The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG or UNC Greensboro) is a public research university in Greensboro, North Carolina. It is part of the University of North Carolina, University of North Carolina system. It is accredited by the S ...

. He was the main architect of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at UNCG. The program is considered one of the best in the nation. In 1966, Watson and graduate writing student Lawrence Judson Reynolds began the ''Greensboro Review'', a respected literary journal that has since earned a national reputation. Some of Watson’s awards and honors include: the American Scholar Poetry Prize (1959), a

National Endowment of the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

Fellowship (1974-1975), and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award (1977). In 1980, he authored an article, published as "Media Martyrdom" in Harper's Magazine and excerpted as "The Other Side of the Greensboro Shootout" in the Washington Post, in which he defended the Ku Klux Klan for their actions in the Greensboro massacre.

References

Finding Aid for the Robert W. Watson Papers
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Civil Rights Greensboro: Robert W. Watson
1925 births 2012 deaths University of North Carolina at Greensboro faculty Williams College alumni {{US-English-academic-bio-stub