Thought I’d share fall photos of the Kousa dogwood at our house and its fruit, after showing its greenery earlier.
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Smith College, my alma mater, is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year with a number of events. I travelled to our Northampton, Massachsuetts campus for the “Come Home to Smith” events on November 1st. The campus was beautiful as always and it was a privilege to be back on campus with other alums and current students, as well as family members who were visiting as it was also Family Weekend.
It was my privilege to also attend the first-ever event of the Smith VOICES (Variety of Opinions, Interests, Cohorts, and Experiences are Supported) initiative, organized around the theme of “Joyful Care.” I enjoyed fascinating presentations on wellness for individuals and communities, offered by alums and staff. I appreciated the opportunity to interact with other alums from across the age spectrum and from many different backgrounds and communities.
I especially enjoyed the opportunity to learn new things, reflect, and deepen my understanding. Smith is a champion for liberal arts education, encouraging both breadth and depth of learning and I cherish being part of that tradition. While I didn’t have as much time and energy to wander around campus, I had to stop and learn about this research garden, tucked along the pathway between Wright Hall and Chapin House:
I also enjoyed spending time in some renovated spaces on campus. The opening of VOICES was in Alumnae House in the same room where we held our wedding reception in 1982. Later presentations were in Neilson Library. The photo below was taken in the Browsing Room and shows the official portrait of Jill Kerr Conway, the first woman president of Smith, who was president when I was a student.
To cap the Come Home to Smith activities, current president Sarah Willie-LeBreton addressed the alums and answered questions with insight and warmth. I heard from several alums and staff members how vital President Sarah’s leadership has been in these stressful times for higher education and for society in general. I also love how everyone calls her “President Sarah” with true affection. This was my first opportunity to hear her speak in person. She was astute, thoughtful, and joyful, even when touching on challenges that we are facing.
I ended the day with the Montage concert, which brought together musical groups now active on campus, over half of which were not in existence when I was a student. My favorite new-to-me group was the Wailing Banshees, Smith’s Celtic music ensemble. I loved seeing that the handbell choir, which was very small in my day, has grown to enable ringing five octaves. A newer tradition that has developed is ending with an audience participation piece. We joined in with “Let There Be Peace on Earth” with the Glee Club and Orchestra, which, I admit, made me teary.
In her will, Sophia Smith provided the funds to build and maintain a college for women that would provide an education equal to that available to men. The will states, “It is my wish that the institution be so conducted, that during all coming time it shall do the most good to the greatest number. I would have it a perennial blessing to the country and the world.” I’m grateful that Smith College continues to be a blessing and that it grows and changes in ways that honor Sophia Smith’s wishes. Having previously made their financial aid packages loan-free, Smith recently announced the Next 150 Pledge , which will make Smith tuition-free for families with incomes up to $150,000.
I’m proud to be part of the Smith College family and hope that we will continue as a “perennial blessing” for the next 150 years and beyond!
(Photo credit: Carolina Porras Monroy)
When I wrote this post on the Boiler House Poets Collective‘s tenth anniversary reading (and my birthday), I fully intended to post another couple of times during the residency, but that didn’t work out, so this is my catch-up attempt to encapsulate the rest of the residency.
Sunday was a busy day. Leery of being in an enclosed space with lots of people for over an hour, I opted for online mass. I got the above-linked blog post out and worked on an alternate bio poem modeled after one Judy Hoyer had brought to a BHPC workshop session earlier in the residency. Instead of eating with the other poets at 1:00 – daily lunches are part of our residency package – I took my lunch down the block to Main St. to await the arrival of the Fall Foliage parade. Because it was bizarrely hot (mid-80s F./29 C), I decided to wear the T-shirt that daughter T had given me for my birthday which says “This heat wave was brought to you by Big Oil.” I found a place in the shade and ate my lunch, enjoying watching the crowd, especially the little ones, as we waited for the parade to reach us.
I had read a poem at the reading the day before contrasting the full-scale parades of the my childhood in the ’60s and ’70s with the very subdued parade of 2016 where there were very few spectators and almost no children, either watching or participating. I’m happy to report that the 2025 parade was much more vibrant, with more community groups represented, including a lot of youth groups, such as Scouts, dance troupes, and sports/cheer teams. I admit that the high school bands are still at least 50% smaller than when I was a student at Drury in the ’70s, but they may grow as these younger children reach high school in a few years. I did feel sorry for the bands in their wool uniforms and the uniformed fire fighters marching in that heat, while the spectators were wearing shorts and tees. I appreciate the revived community spirit and later had a conversation with a BHPC member who lives in North Adams about recent gains in bringing together the people who have lived in the area for generations and the more recent arrivals drawn by MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) and the growing arts scene. I hope that spirit will continue to strengthen and make North Adams stronger for all the residents.
Later in the afternoon, we workshopped. I brought the alternate bio poem and was shocked that people enjoyed it. By nature, that kind of poem is more light-hearted than my usual work and I am not known for being witty or humorous, so I was happy I managed to pull it off. After that, we walked to dinner and then back to our apartment for evening conversation.
It turned out to be more than I should have attempted, especially with the hot weather and the busy day on Saturday. I had to scale back on my activity level for our final two days.
There were some highlights, though. I had a delicious breakfast on Monday morning with Cousin S at Renee’s Diner. Monday evening, we ate at Grazie in their new location. Most of BHPC’s welcome dinners on the first evening of residency had been held at Grazie when it was located on the ground floor of the apartment building we call home during our time in North Adams. We definitely wanted to visit their new home, which is larger and has a parking lot! After dinner, we had our planning meeting for next year and I was thrilled to know that all ten of us want to return in October, 2026. Exact dates still need to be scheduled by The Studios but it’s nice to know that we don’t have to do any recruiting over the winter.
A highlight of Tuesday was a morning concert that BHPC member Carol Mikoda offered during storytime at the North Adams Public Library. It was in the same room where we had given our reading, except with a colorful mat on the floor, perfect for all the bouncing, dancing, and crawling the little ones did in reaction to Carol’s singing, accompanied by her guitar. Many of the songs were original compositions and the adults present enjoyed her clever lyrics. Carol had another momentous event occur during the residency. Her newest book, Outside of Time, was released by Kelsay Books. Congratulations, Carol!
Carolina Porras Mornoy, the new director of The Studios at MASS MoCA which hosts our residencies, took some photos of us in our beloved Boiler House at the museum and while we were workshopping. There will be an Instagram post coming next week featuring the Boiler House Poets Collective. The Studios are celebrating their tenth anniversary this month so it is especially fitting to have the tenth anniversary of the Boiler House Poets Collective as part of their observance. BHPC formed at the very first poetry workshop-in-residence that The Studios hosted in fall of 2015, facilitated by Jeffrey Levine of Tupelo Press. The poets hit it off so well that, even before that week finished, we were hatching plans to return, which we have done every year since.
I am the only “original” to make all the reunions so far. In 2020, when The Studios were closed for an extended period due to the pandemic, I took the opportunity to return to North Adams for a private writing retreat. You can read about that experience by checking out my August 2020 blog archive. MASS MoCA had re-opened by then with COVID protocols in place so I was able to spend time writing about the art there, while also visiting familiar places in the surrounding towns.
I am so grateful to the Boiler House Poets Collective, The Studios at MASS MoCA, the Museum itself, and the city of North Adams for ten years of welcome, sharing, and great experiences. Here’s to the next ten years – and beyond!
As I wrote about here, I am in North Adams for the 10th anniversary residency with my beloved Boiler House Poets Collective.
It is unusually warm for early October this year, which is, unfortunately, riling up some of my health issues, but I did manage to spend some time in the buildings at MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) yesterday. Although I wasn’t putting pressure on myself to write, I was so moved by the Ohan Breiding Belly of a Glacier exhibit that I sat in the gallery and drafted a poem about it. Bonus: the centerpiece of the exhibit is a film and then I was able to sit in the related exhibit room to write so I got to rest and not have to worry about keeping my balance for a long bit.
I was able to participate in workshopping with the poets before spouse B came to pick me up for dinner and the evening with one of your high school friends who still lives in the North Adams area. B and daughter T came into town to be able to attend the special Boiler House Poets Collective 10th anniversary reading on Saturday.
I was a bit nervous about reading, as my health has kept me from doing it much over these last couple of years, so I practiced a bit more beforehand than usual. We were thrilled to be reading at the North Adams Public Library in their third floor community space, which is part of the original mansion that became the library in 1898.
Through the wonders of alphabetical order, I introduced the group with a brief history and then read the two North Adams-themed poems I had chosen. It was very cool that the podium we were using was a gift to the library in honor of a local poet, artist, and teacher, D. Patrice Bolgen, who passed away in 2021.
The reading was fantastic! It was so great to hear a sampling of work from all ten of us: Joanne Corey, Merrill Douglas, Jessica Dubey, Mary Beth Hines, Judith Hoyer, Kyle Laws, Deborah Marshall, Carol Mikoda, Eva Schegulla, and Wendy Stewart. It meant a lot to me to have B and T there for the reading. My poet-friends surprised me with a card and birthday flowers – along with the traditional singing of “Happy Birthday to You” – after the reading.
We were also thrilled to be able to present our gift to North Adams for ten years of hospitality to the Boiler House Poets Collective, a collaborative poem that you can read at the beginning of the post. Wendy Stewart read it as part of the thank yous at the reading and we gave it to people who were at the reading. A larger broadside version is our gift to the library, The Studios staff, and other officials who make our time here so joyous.
A collaborative poem is one that a group of poets write together. For this poem, each of us contributed several lines on the theme of praising North Adams which a smaller group assembled into the poem. We were happy to be able to craft a special gift to North Adams in honor of our tenth anniversary in residence with The Studios at MASS MoCA.
After lunch, I was able to do a revision of the poem I had drafted in the Breiding exhibit on Friday in time to bring it to our workshopping session. I was glad to have something to bring as I had thought I might not manage it until Sunday or Monday. Of course, that means I don’t have anything prepared for today yet, so I think it’d better close this post and get over to the Museum or my studio and work on something.
Or take a deep breath and remind myself that there is no pressure to bring something to workshop today. I am among trusted friends who will understand if today is not my day to share.
Eric Carle, beloved author/artist of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and many other books, lived in western Massachusetts where I grew up and I’m very happy that Bombas chose to honor his legacy with a line of socks for both children and adults.
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “something that opens.”
Something that opens is my first chapbook, Hearts. In a shameless exercise in self-promotion, I’m using this post to draw attention to a post that I just finished about the second anniversary of Hearts.
Check it out!
Photo Credit: Ellen Morris Prewitt
On December 7, 2024, I shared Ellen Morris Prewitt’s essay about the 150th anniversary of the Vicksburg Massacres.
Ellen is the granddaughter of the main instigator of the Massacres and has been sharing her experiences as she has researched her family’s involvement and grappled with the continuing legacy of racism.
Now, Ellen has a powerful essay entitled “Granddaughter of The Instigator” in the Juneteenth special edition of Salvation South, which delves further into her witness to the legacy of the Vicksburg Massacres on a community and personal level. This essay is an excerpt from her memoir-in-progress, Loving My Hateful Ancestors. You can read a post about the publication of the essay in Ellen’s Very Southern Voice blog and, while you’re there, subscribe to her newsletter and/or follow her blog.
I just realized that I keep referring to Ellen Morris Prewitt by her first name, as though we were acquainted in real life, but we only met each other through blogging. Her writing is so vivid and heartfelt, though, that I feel as if we know each other through our posts and our comments on each other’s blogs with a side of occasional personal emails.
I’m a fan of Ellen’s and invite you to join me!
After sharing that we have a new Kousa dogwood in our yard last Wednesday, I though I’d share a picture from this week with it flowering alongside the peonies.
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/06/11/one-liner-wednesday-better/
Our landscapers just brought us a new Kousa dogwood for our front yard to replace one that was dying.
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/06/04/one-liner-wednesday-what-day-was-it-yesterday-anyway-edition/
Today is the sixth anniversary of my mother’s death. I know many people who, even decades later, tell me they think of their deceased mother every day. I confess that I can’t make that claim. While I spoke to my mother nearly every day of my life, this became increasingly difficult in the last months of her life as her heart failure robbed her brain of oxygen. After her death, I had many months of flashbacks to those last difficult years, while also dealing with my father’s grief. He used to talk to and about my mother often, but, over time, his own heart failure erased the memory of her death. Toward the end, he would ask when she was coming to visit him in the skilled nursing unit and all I could say is that he would see her soon.
The photo above is of the memorials we placed at the memorial park where their cremains are inurned. I wrote this post explaining their significance when we placed them in 2022.
On Mother’s Day, I went to visit their resting place and was shocked to find that our memorials had been removed. I contacted the office, hoping that they had been placed in storage but they were just gone.
Alone in the room near my parents’ grave, I cried and told them I was sorry that these special memorials had been lost.
I think that is the only time that I have spoken aloud to my parents there.
My family has been supportive of me as I’ve dealt with the loss of these special and meaningful memorials to my parents. I’ve decided to print a photo of them and put it in a plastic frame to place on the table near their grave. That way, if it disappears, I would be able to replace it easily.
In the post linked above, I wrote about feeling more at peace when we placed the memorial. I think I had come to a place in living with loss where I could set aside the trauma of my parents’ final years and deaths and have better memories surface. I’m not sure if that is the point where I stopped thinking about my parents every day or not.
What I do know every day is that my parents gifted me not only with life but also with the foundation of who I am.
Their legacy is always with me, whether or not I bring it to consciousness.
Joanne Corey 