As community events shift to online platforms, Smith’s Boutelle-Day Poetry Center is finding new and creative ways of gathering virtually to celebrate the joy of writing. On Tuesday Oct. 6, the Poetry Center hosted a book launch via Zoom for the newly published book of poems “The Map of Every Lilac Leaf.” The book was published in conjunction with the Smith College Museum of Art, and all of the poems draw inspiration from pieces in Smith’s art collection.
Posts published in “Books”
“Wild Nights With Emily,” a dramatization of the passionate and untold love life of American poetry icon Emily Dickinson, premieres in Amherst this spring at local theaters. Initially produced as a play in 1999, the film revels in Dickinson’s unacknowledged status as an infamous gay woman.
From Elm and State Streets Comes ‘Houses From Another Street,’ a Novel by Professor Michael Thurston
While his office seems comfortable, with stacks of papers and piles of books customary to the English professor, Professor Michael Thurston noted: “I write everywhere except [in] my office. I do teaching stuff here, meet with students here and do college stuff here, but this is a place where I have never been able to write a decent sentence, either of academic prose or of fiction.”
The Me Too movement blew away, at least in part, the air of inherent dignity and importance of The Great Male Artist. Before the movement,…
“Banned,” a book of poems written by an anonymous poet comments and analyzes the political conditions in the U.S. and the state of the world in the most graceful way possible. Anonymous, the poet, plays around with typefaces and concrete poetry to integrate visual artwork. To read “Banned” is a visually engaging experience that will leave you nodding your head in agreement and snapping your fingers.
Israeli writer and screenwriter Dorit Rabinyan gave a talk at Smith College last week on her controversial book “All the Rivers,” and why literature still matters. Students, faculty and members of the community filled the Graham Hall at Hillyer. Marjorie Roth ‘67, a donor to the Program of Jewish Studies, was also present at the talk.
Camille Bordas’s newest novel, “How to Behave in a Crowd,” receives the rave review of Cas Sweeney ’19.