A fall poem: Columbus’ Discovery

My woodpile ain’t pretty, bent, forked, not sawn square short, long, fat and gnarly like an old wizard’s hair.   Stacked cut colors aren’t even ends dapple the rack tan, red and yellow and old cuts are black.   My firewood looks like me dry, wrinkled and crochety bad joints and old bumps and a certain obstinacy.   When the dead tree is standing and the bark gone for good that old, light, dry timber Roger called “Biscuit Wood.”   Attacking big chunks when wielding a maul Roger said yell “Wenh!” and give it y … (read more)

MIDDLEBURY — Poet, University of Vermont professor and guest editor of “The Best American Poetry 2019,” Major Jackson presents this new published annual collection with featured poets Didi Jackson, Vievee Francis, Camille Guthrie and Jane Shore on Tuesday … (read more)

Russ Reilly, who among other things was a long-time announcer at Middlebury College football games, died July 24. A memorial service will be held at Mead Chapel on the Middlebury campus this Saturday, Sept. 21, at 3 p.m. For many years, Gary Margolis sat … (read more)

VERGENNES — As far back as she can remember, Alexandria Hall considered herself a poet. “Even before I could write I was creating these little books of stories that I just wrote for myself,” she recalls. The work of this Vergennes native and member of the … (read more)

A situation stings perception. Observation spurs inspection. Detection demands correction. Intervention assumes commotion. Convention begets conception. Imagination pursues invention. Inception fuels apprehension. Aggravation sparks improvisation. Constru … (read more)

                  Inside   Ducks of the early morning lake vee into nearby reeds, early summer rustling toward flight   while elsewhere morning scrim slowly rises, loosens peepholes along shorelines, pinpricks of light on familiar mountain stonecroppings … (read more)

Editor’s note: Toby Baker-Rouse was a 9-year-old fourth-grader in Middlebury when he submitted this poem to the Young Writers Project this past school year.   Today The Baby Crawled on Me   Today the baby crawled on me, with kisses and with drool. My moth … (read more)

Abraham Lincoln sat peacefully in the National Lincoln Memorial. A tear drop fell. Our National Statue of Liberty stood peacefully on our NYC shore. A tear drop fell. The tanks rolled in. The Lincoln Memorial was blocked. We could not sit on the steps. A … (read more)

CORNWALL — When’s the last time you wrote a poem? For some of us, it was a long time ago… like, before Facebook, OMG — back when journals served as outlets for inward, emotional tweens. For others, like Gary Margolis, poetry is a daily practice. Every mor … (read more)

Do I scare you? They call it Islamophobia after all. Do I scare you? Does my family scare you? Let me give you a summary of us, in case you didn’t really know us all that well.   Me, Standing at about 5 foot 2 inches, With big, bushy, fuzzy hair And a pen … (read more)