Potash Hill 
Published twice every year, Potash Hill shares highlights of what Marlboro College community members, in both undergraduate and graduate programs, are doing, creating, and thinking. The publication is named after the hill in Marlboro, Vermont, where the college was founded in 1946. “Potash,” or potassium carbonate, was a locally important industry in the 18th and 19th centuries, obtained by leaching wood ash and evaporating the result in large iron pots. Students and faculty at Marlboro no longer make potash, but they are very industrious in their own way, as this publication amply demonstrates. 

Editor: Philip Johansson
Alumni Director: Maia Segura ’91
Staff Photographers: Emily Weatherill ’21 and Clement Goodman ’22
Staff Writer: Sativa Leonard ’23
Design: Falyn Arakelian 

Potash Hill welcomes letters to the editor. Mail them to: Editor, Potash Hill, Marlboro College, P.O. Box A, Marlboro, VT 05344, or send email to pjohansson@marlboro.edu. The editor reserves the right to edit for length letters that appear in Potash Hill.  

Front Cover: The Serkin Center for the Performing Arts takes on an air of ambiguity as reflected in the campus fire pond. The future of the campus has been on the mind of many, as Marlboro College prepares to enter an alliance with Emerson College. Photo by Richard Smith  

Students in the Body as Material and Metaphor class (right) demonstrate teamwork during their performance of “InterCorporeum,” choreographed by visiting artist Daniel Bear Davis, in December’s Dances in the Rough showcase. Students have provided unprecedented mutual support in the past year, and have responded to the uncertain future with empathy and compassion. See some excerpts from Dances in the Rough. Photo by Emily Weatherill ‘21. 

About Marlboro College
Marlboro College provides independent thinkers with exceptional opportunities to broaden their intellectual horizons, benefit from a small and close-knit learning community, establish a strong foundation for personal and career fulfillment, and make a positive difference in the world. At our campus in the town of Marlboro, Vermont, students engage in deep exploration of their interests while developing transferrable skills that can be directly correlated with success after graduation, known as the Marlboro Promise. These skills are: (1) the ability to write with clarity and precision; (2) the ability to work, live, and communicate with a wide range of individuals; and (3) the ability to lead an ambitious project from idea to execution. Marlboro students fulfill this promise in an atmosphere that emphasizes critical and creative thinking, independence, an egalitarian spirit, and community.   

Keeping it Experiential

“During the semester when readings and papers pile up, it’s easy to take for granted the ‘mundane’ things—a hot cup of coffee, clean dishes, good winter boots, easily moving five miles down the road—but these seemingly little things keep us alive, get us moving, and give our brains the needed time to process and rest. 

“The hands-on, experiential learning of expedition trips is an essential counterpart to classroom work. I’ve had more epiphanies driving a stretch of highway in South Dakota than I ever did in the process of writing a paper for class. When these trips are in their element, whether the Rocky Mountains or the Green Mountains, they provide the perfect environment for the ‘aha’ moments and fuel for better learning.” 

— Nikolas Katrick ’07, MSM ’16, Outdoor Program Director 

Panoramic photo of the Outdoor Program building and surroundings by Mark Roessler ’90, part of his series of “panorambles” around Marlboro’s storied campus. Take a virtual tour (and admire our stately elm tree, now sadly missing) at panorambles.com/tours/marlboro. 

To Burn Through Where You Are Not Yet 
By Sophie Cabot Black '80

Those who take on risk are not those
Who bear it. The sign said to profit

As they do, trade around the one
Particular. Let them credit what you hunt,

Let future perform. Results are for your
Children anyway; returns can be long

To notice, and when wrong, will right
Unless the drawdown is steep, or of your own

Doing. If only to have known then the now:
The thesis did not revert, never worked;

You did not move
Except to the already—

And as the prodigy breaks from the pack,
Disrupts into the new for just one more

Click above the dial, the deal
Downriver is how you will get paid,

Later, further. Out beyond
Where you just see. Trust the flow

Is what he said, sort out the secular
As each day reconciles you

Into a morning of leaving. Or at least going;
Coming back at dark to take off your shoes

And ease into that chair. With that glass. Filled
Again. Not yet paid for. All resting

On an infinitesimal wire you have never seen.
Their wire. Their there. You here. Not there.

This poem was previously published in The New Yorker, December 2, 2019 edition. Sophie Cabot Black visited campus on February 27 and shared her poetry at a reading in Apple Tree, part of the Marlboro College Alumni Speaker Series. She has written three collections of poetry, most recently The Exchange. You can hear Sophie read “To Burn Through Where You Are Not Yet.”

The above photo was taken at the November farewell ceremony for the majestic elm that stood to the right of the dining hall for all of Marlboro’s years. The tree was removed in January, and much of the lumber will be used by art students and alumni craftspeople to build on their Marlboro memories.

Remembering Hillary 
I sent a poem I wrote the day I found out Hilary Sloin had died (Potash Hill Fall 2019), but asked that it not be considered for Potash Hill because I expressed anger at her for dying, and because I used cuss words. And then I thought of the years she and I worked with T. Wilson in Poetry Workshop. Hil and I were so serious about writing then and, gratifyingly, T. took us seriously. It was the best writing training I’ve ever had—sitting in that sunny classroom, high up in an old barn, arguing about whether one word or another was extraneous. 

I think the poem would pass a workshop criticism. I think Hil would be ok with the F-bombs and the anger. We were estranged for years, but she was never far from my thoughts and a couple years ago I found her again. We were both working on old furniture and selling old stuff. Both single, living with our dogs and driving old pickup trucks. Our apples didn’t fall far. 

In fact, we first met in the apple trees next to the dining hall. We climbed the apple trees and talked like third graders: what do you like, what’s cool. We never agreed on everything but we related to each other a lot. She was funny, she was sweet, she was opinionated, she wasn’t always right, she made me laugh. She was an amazingly hard-working and talented writer. I’m lucky I knew her. 
—Rachel Mendez ’85  

Sacred Singing
I’m a PhD student at the University of Illinois and am working on my dissertation about Sacred Harp singing in the northeast. I found a reference to an article in Potash Hill, Spring of 1981, by Anthony Barrand and Carole Moody, called “The Making of Northern Harmony.” I was wondering if it’s possible to acquire this article either through your office, the library, or elsewhere on campus. Thanks very much for any help you can offer.
—Jonathon Smith 

Marlboro’s archivist fellow Megan O’Loughlin was able to locate this issue of Potash Hill in the library and sent a scan of “The Making of Northern Harmony” to Jonathon, which you can find here: marlboro.edu/harmony. —ed. 

Last Potash Hill?
If things go well with Emerson College as planned, this Potash Hill stands to be the penultimate issue, with one more published in Fall 2020 to honor our last graduating class on campus, make some cumulative sense of Marlboro’s legacy, and prepare readers for what might come next. Readers are encouraged to contribute to this final issue, in the form of letters, memories, vignettes, poems, or pictures. What was your favorite class? Who was your biggest crush? What was your ultimate Marlboro experience? What did this land that we all hold dear mean to you? Please send your memories to pjohansson@marlboro.edu. We will publish as many submissions as space allows, and post the remainder online. 

Errata
As an alumna who graduated last May, I was able to see firsthand some of the work that was done with CASP and the asylum seekers (Potash Hill Fall 2019). I noticed that one of the main participants in the committee, Rosario de Swanson, a professor who has gone above and beyond in her work for the college, was not mentioned in the article. I hope there will be some acknowledgement of this error and that it will be made right.
—Alicia Lowden ’19 

Thanks, Alicia, for keeping us honest. Rosario’s name was added to the digital version of the Fall 2019 Potash Hill. Please accept our apologies. —ed. 

Potash Hill regrets that we misspelled the name of departed staff member Karleen Crossman in her obituary. —ed.  

 

Embracing Uncertainty 
By Kevin F. F. Quigley 

Last December’s Dances in the Rough was an amazing showcase of student work, demonstrating a depth of curiosity and passion for learning that characterizes Marlboro College. One of the most inspiring performances was called “A Two-Part Experiment in Not Knowing,” choreographed by Alta Millar ’20 and performed by Alta and Charlie Hickman ’21.

Punctuating the dance with seemingly random movements and drawing members of the audience into their tangled web of uncertainty, Alta and Charlie posed questions that required “the practice of being comfortably unsure.” Their insights were particularly poignant during this uncertain time as we work to forge Marlboro’s alliance with Emerson College. 

There are so many reasons to be anxious during this momentous transition, and my heart goes out to everyone on whom this uncertainty has taken a toll. Since the announcement of the Emerson alliance in November, both communities have made great strides in learning about each other’s strengths, finding synergies, and charting a new path together. Some of this work you can read about in this issue of Potash Hill, but much of it is necessarily still a work in progress. 

In the meantime, of course, students have questions about what classes they can take, or if the faculty they planned on working with will be moving to Emerson. Faculty have questions about what their curriculum will look like, or what physical spaces will be available to them. Alumni and Marlboro townspeople have questions about the future of the campus and Marlboro’s legacy. There will be answers to all of these, but not until Marlboro and Emerson sign a more binding agreement. While I am optimistic that an agreement will be reached soon, it is still pending at the time of this publication. 

The devil is in the details, as always. Many people who are passionate about the success of the Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies are working hard on sorting out these details, and I am heartened and inspired by their continued progress. I am also grateful to the board of trustees for addressing our insurmountable financial and enrollment challenges now, while Marlboro still has the resources to forge a partnership that ensures the continuation of our mission and identity, while also providing remarkable opportunities for our faculty and students who choose to go to the Marlboro Institute at Emerson. 

In the current landscape of many small New England colleges closing abruptly in the face of similar challenges, we consider ourselves lucky. But we have traded certain abruptness for uncertainty, as we have taken this period of time to make the Emerson alliance the best it can possibly be, for all parties involved. We have chosen the path of being “comfortably unsure” because of the promise that path holds. 

You can find the latest details of Marlboro’s alliance with Emerson at marlboro.edu/partnership. 

By Charles Curtin '86

A career conservation scientist and co-editor of the recent book Complex Ecology, alumnus Charles Curtin reflects on 30 years of change in ecology and conservation. 

She needs wide open spaces Room to make her big mistakes She needs new faces She knows the high stakes. —Dixie Chicks 

Early in my career, the Dixie Chicks song Wide Open Spaces was commonplace on the airwaves and one I frequently heard as I drove to my field sites in southern Arizona and New Mexico. Then as now, the song’s refrain aptly summarizes some of the core elements needed to effectively confront challenges such as climate change, mass extinction, and a myriad of other issues facing the planet: the need to work at large scales where the intrinsic dynamics of the system are expressed; the need for patience and humility where social and ecological processes interact in complex and unpredictable ways, where you frequently learn as much or more from failures as successes; the need to engage with a variety of collaborators to get things done in often socially and politically contentious settings. And indeed the stakes are high: what hangs in the balance is much more than local environmental concerns or professional standing, but the very fabric and integrity of our fragile planet. 

Scientific careers, like life itself, are usually a work in progress. Like a series of experiments, one’s thinking evolves to reflect emerging realities. When enough scientists and other thinkers individually and collectively grapple with similar issues, there can arise a new consensus that marks a transition in society’s perspective. We appear to be on the cusp of such a transformation right now as the sorts of linear, “clockwork” views proposed by Isaac Newton, Adam Smith, and others hundreds of years ago in the Enlightenment era are breaking down in the face of an intrinsically messy reality. 

Climate change and the extinction crisis show that the problems humanity now faces are not linear and predictable but complex and dynamic, with outcomes far greater than the sum of their parts. Surprise is becoming thenew norm. Events such as Hurricane Katrina and the earthquake and tsunami at Fukushima highlight the need for a different kind of science and policy, one that addresses challenges with a new humility and pragmatism. My own journey of discovery parallels this important transition in scientific thinking. 

The first phase of my evolving thinking on science and complexity began with my time at Marlboro College, where my professors (especially Bob Engel) introduced me to the view that quality science was both rigorous and elegant. Classic ecological studies, such as those of luminary ecologist and Marlboro alumnus Robert MacArthur (brother of Marlboro physics professor John), transformed ecology from primarily a descriptive to a quantitative discipline. But equally important, the MacArthur brothers and collaborators showed experimental ecology to be something of immense beauty. 

In paraphrasing Pablo Picasso, Robert once stated, “Science is the lie that helps us see the truth,” recognizing that science, like art, is as much about insight as a search for objective reality. Especially in the post-war era from the 1950s through the early 1980s, the relatively simple math available to ecologists before computational power became widespread meant that much of the science of the period was a gross simplification of reality. But this simplification led to an elegance and focus on big conceptual questions that have rarely been attempted since. 

Following Marlboro, my graduate career was also marked by a search for conceptual elegance. From research on the recovery of subalpine ecosystems in Colorado to studies on the impact of climate and land-use change on species, my approach embraced a search for simple solutions to complex challenges. This was followed by a post-doc at the University of New Mexico with ecologist James H. Brown, managing studies of desert ecological communities (work I had read and admired as an undergraduate at Marlboro). 

Brown’s work was another series of exceedingly elegant experiments that provided clarity through simplifications of reality. However, during my post-doc, I also had the opportunity to spend time at a complex-system think tank, the Santa Fe Institute (SFI). My time at SFI would forever change the way I viewed science and conservation, by recognizing that elegance did not necessarily require a focus on simplification. Instead, a fundamental challenge of science and conservation was to embrace reality by grappling with complexity. 

Out of my interest in demonstrating that experimental ecology could incorporate complexity arose the McKinney Flats Project, a nearly 9,000-acre experiment in southern New Mexico. This project was a microcosm of study plots spanning a million-acre conservation planning area, and was intended to provide insight into the dynamics playing out across the entire intermountain West. However, it soon became apparent that to understand systems at the size of even 9,000 acres would take at least 12 to 16 years. This period was far too long to acquire the requisite publications to attain tenure at most universities. So a new sort of science was needed, one embedded in vast landscapes and that involved working closely with remote rural communities. 

I left academia and founded a nonprofit research institute that provided the institutional flexibility and ability to produce the answers I thought society most needed. As it turned out, McKinney Flats was as much a social experiment as a biological one. I was simultaneously having cowboys manage a 200-head herd of cattle, undertaking 8,000-acre prescribed burns, introducing species such as prairie dogs, and working with biologists on a diversity of ecological sampling. Doing all this while also sustaining a partnership with the rancher-led conservation organization Malpai Borderlands Group proved to be both challenging and insightful. No longer was I applying comparatively simple, replicated experimental designs, but working amid the intrinsic messiness of the “real world,” where social dynamics are just as important as ecological ones. 

Although the McKinney Flats study ended prematurely, due to the 2007–2008 recession and concurrent social upheaval along the US-Mexico border, valuable lessons had been learned. I found that effective science and conservation are a result of social design as much as scientific replication—putting in place the preconditions for success that most biological scientists and conservationists rarely consider. I recognized that there needed to be a greater synthesis of social and ecological approaches. 

My experience gave me a new perspective now widely accepted, but still seldom attained, where one does not think along purely disciplinary boundaries but views disciplines as different tools in a diverse tool kit. The role of the researcher is to select the right tool for the job, rather than merely applying a paradigm because it is what you know. Theories were no longer suppositions to be defended, but ideas to be explored and thoughtfully challenged. Complexity is embraced, rather than avoided— the intrinsic messiness of the world is designed into the study, rather than designed out of it. 

In tandem with McKinney Flats, and in the years that followed, I embarked on a wide range of social and ecological experiments related to collaborative science and conservation. This work engaged a wide array of stakeholders in large-scale problem solving with a focus on involving local people and their values and insights in science and policy. These efforts included fishery recovery in the western Atlantic, collaborative conservation programs in East Africa and the Middle East, and farmer cooperatives in the Midwest and New England. I also co-founded programs on collaboration, complexity, and adaptive management at MIT and other universities. 

These experiences were followed by a return to on-the-ground efforts in collaborative conservation in Montana, where what I learned was sobering. It soon became apparent the ideas gleaned from my earlier efforts in large-scale science and conservation were necessary, but not sufficient to keep pace with the increasing rates of environmental and societal change. To mix metaphors, the best of conventional conservation was still mainly a process of rearranging deck chairs (while Rome burns). Yes, we were restoring watersheds and saving a few wolves or grizzly bears. However, we were not fundamentally addressing the most severe threats such as global environmental change, or wholesale transformations of local or indigenous cultures. This was because we were not meaningfully addressing the limitations undermining most science and policy. A fundamental rethink of conservation was needed. 

As the social philosopher Tom Atlee noted, “Things are getting better and better and worse and worse, faster and faster, simultaneously,” and current institutions are typically poorly situated to address this reality. Conservation actions too frequently represent halfway measures—in essence, the settling for less damaging outcomes, rather than fundamentally better solutions. In my career, I have to admit, I have too often been complacent in accepting such “solutions.” There were marine policies that mayhave reduced the decline of fisheries but didn’t address the core issue of unsustainable fishing practices, and collaborative organizations that protected endangered species but didn’t address agricultural practices that degrade watersheds and increase greenhouse gases. 

Conventional collaborative approaches were essential in building common ground and an understanding of how to conduct conservation at large scales. It is certainly not appropriate to cast aside such testbeds of innovation and problem solving, for they have made enormous contributions to preserving communities and species. However, we need to learn and apply the lessons from decades of experience that have much to teach us about how to design, develop, and sustain more integrated efforts that consider the whole system and not just fragments. In short, we need to move beyond reactive to proactive approaches and policies.

The disappointments of Rio, Paris, and other climate accords, and the relative impermanence of global and national climate policy, strongly suggest that if effective action is to happen, it is not going to come from global agreements but from local engagement and action. It has to be built from the ground up, and right now we’re trying such an approach in the Sangre de Cristo mountains. 

The Sangre de Cristo Initiative is seeking to regenerate the culture, ecology, and economies of a 4-million-acre landscape from north-central New Mexico to south-central Colorado. The point of this initiative is to show that conservation is not only sustainable, but can contribute to the integrity of social and ecological systems. Especially in some of the poorest counties in the US, we need to do more than protect nature. We need integrated solutions to the coupled challenges of rising global temperatures and the conservation of species and ecosystems, while engaging disenfranchised rural populations. We’re exploring using biomass energy production technologies to restore forest and watershed health, and fuel economic revitalization of the region while reducing CO2 inputs into the atmosphere. 

There are many ways we can rethink conservation and science, but we must recognize that the status quo is often not sufficient, or perhaps even ethical, given the extent of current threats. Projects such as the Sangre de Cristo Initiative illustrate there are alternative frameworks that can make conservation and environmental science more effective in their service to society and the planet. These approaches bring together decades of experience searching for elegance and integrity, incorporating multiple viewpoints, and working across disciplines and ecological boundaries. They require humility to work with what Buddhist teachings call shoshin, or a “beginner’s mind,” where you address complex challenges with eagerness, openness, and a lack of preconceptions. Lastly, these new approaches to conservation include viewing actions as experiments, so one can truly learn from them.  

“For a scientist there are worse sins than being wrong; one of them is being trivial.” —Robert H. MacArthur  

Charles Curtin is a landscape ecologist and systems design theorist and practitioner who works at the intersection of science and policy, and is founder of BioCultural Connections in New Mexico. He is the author of The Science of Open Spaces: Theory and Practice for Conserving Large, Complex Systems and co-editor of Complex Ecology: Foundational Perspectives on Dynamic Approaches to Ecology and Conservation. His forthcoming book with the working title Prosilience: The Science of Complexity and Integrity is due out next year.  

---

Ecology of the Individual 
“Plants are often regarded as no more than resource objects— unfeeling, passive sorts of beings,” says Hailey Mount ’19, who completed her Plan in ecology and environmental philosophy in December. “But new science, technology, and attention to sustainable environmental relationships are allowing us to view the plant world with a new level of detail.” Hailey used a trait-based method of ecology—specifically, looking at the level of individual variation and scaling up and down between other levels from there—to look at how soil acidification could affect tree dynamics in Marlboro’s ecological reserve (Spring 2018 Potash Hill). “I’m exploring how these new techniques in ecology, and the philosophical idea of plants as subjective ‘others’ worthy of empathetic consideration, can come together and improve our environmental relationships, our management practices, and the way we interact with the world.”  

By Bronwen Tate

A professor of creative writing and literature reflects on how sounds contribute both patterns and disorder to her poetry, and how her work as a scholar, mother, and teacher informs her work as a poet.  

I think poetry has always been about sound on some level for me, ever since I first memorized Alfred Noyes’ “The Highwayman” for the pleasure of being able to recite it to myself when I was 8 or 9 years old. Whenever I write poetry, there’s some element of writing by ear, of repeating words or phrases back to myself and sounding my way to the next sentence or line. Sound connects to the body, to the sense that we know things in our bodies and can feel them before we fully articulate them. 

My recent poems are grappling with sound and language as a material, while also trying to participate in the world of actual people and experiences. I teach creative writing across genres, so I’m constantly working with students on memoir and fiction, as well as poetry. This means that I’m always thinking about the different goals and trade-offs that happen across genres, and it pushes me to really consider what I want to prioritize or emphasize in my work. At the moment, I’m working on some poems that are deeply sound-driven. 

Recently, I read Gregory Orr’s A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry with a couple of tutorial students, and he discusses poetry in terms of making space for disorder and chaos and then acting on it with “the ordering powers of the imagination” and of form. I’m interested in how sound can be an ordering power—we give shape to poems through alliteration, rhyme, and other kinds of patterning—while also being a sign of chaos or disorder. Puns, homonyms, and similar forms of sound play reveal a kind of instability or anarchy of language. I’m drawn to both the patterning and the destabilizing powers of sound. 

My work as a poet has developed in conversation with my work as a scholar, a mother, and a teacher. These other forms of work often feel in competition for time with my poetry writing, but they feed it as well. As a scholar, I’ve learned how to really stay with something, to reread it over and over again and look at it from different angles and within a larger context. There’s a problem-solving or method-focused way this shows up in my writing—if I’m struggling with lineation, say, I assign myself focused reading of poets I see doing interesting and intentional work with line breaks, and then I sit with their work, examining its breaks and swerves. 

Mothering drains me at times, but it also immerses me in the hands-on language lab of new humans learning to communicate—their strange phrasings that show the cracks in language and their joy in rhyme and word play remind me that poetry is vital and centrally human at moments when I start to think of it as a weird thing off to the side that no one cares about.  

How many ways has being a mother shifted how I approach my work? So many ways. To describe just one, I sing to my children at bedtime almost every night, and I’ve recently been struck by the questions they ask about songs. The current songs on repeat-request are Gillian Welch’s “I Dream a Highway,” “The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond,” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” and the kids ask things like “How can flowers learn?” or “Do ALL the soldiers go to graveyards?” or “How can the wagon be empty if it’s full of rattling bones?” Now this may just be bedtime stalling, but it’s also a reminder that the urge to notice details and interpret poetic texts is deep in us. I think sometimes we get out of the habit, or encounter this kind of interpretive work as alienating and forced in the high school classroom, but humans are fundamentally grapplers with language and meaning. I take heart from this reminder. 

As a teacher, I’ve been lucky to work at Marlboro College, where we work closely with students on Plans that almost always draw on methods and practices from across multiple disciplines. We also all eat lunch together in the dining hall, so any given day, I’m talking with colleagues and students about wolf dentition, forest gardening, how writing workshops differ from painting critiques, etc. This ongoing dialogue pushes me to question my own assumptions about teaching and about writing. It also keeps me curious, which I see as a necessary condition for writing.  

I get frustrated sometimes because I’ve been writing poetry for a while now, but every time I sit down with a new project I feel like I’m starting all over again. Shouldn’t I know by now what a Bronwen poem does or at least how it starts? But I’m also drawn to poetry because of how open it is. I love how many different ways a poem can make meaning. I love to be surprised in my reading, and I want to be surprised in my writing. Looking forward, I want to make work that holds more, that does a better job bringing different aspects of experience together and showing how they touch each other. I want to let more in. 

Bronwen Tate has taught creative writing and literature at Marlboro since 2017. Her debut full-length poetry collection, The Silk the Moths Ignore, National Winner of the 2019 Hillary Gravendyk Prize, is forthcoming from Inlandia Books. This essay is adapted from an interview with rob mclennan, editor of above/ground press, published on his website Touch the Donkey. Photos by Clement Goodman ’22 

 

Poetry by Bronwen Tate

Reproductions of Frescoes

Travel back. Because of a misstep, I saw a crevice in a horse’s
knee in place of brigands. Play of light and color off their helms.
Reading in the original French. Reading to be elsewhere. I look
past it, first conception.

I read Proust. In wide-sleeved houppelande, she incarnates.
Swollen fruit of her manly form a solid allusion. Prod that
membrane edged with ribbons of watercress or cuckoo flower.

For each word, a word in another language means part of the
same thing. When I look up “midwife” on the university website,
the only reference is to Plato. Theaetetus, he suggests, is in discomfort
because he is in intellectual labour.

I want to be a scholar. I want a new vernacular of milk.

Echo, echo, on my perch with my library. Well-stocked dictionary
sends me Latin, lygeum spartum, cultivated or not present here.

 

I Could Not Ask Other Flowers

Today multiplied.

A layered wealth of strata along the sloped face of the work. Ankle
bone, wind-blown grain, suck of honeysuckle, cell of honeycomb.

Approach the hedgerow with reverence due a rood loft (consent,
oh Lord, to bless). Spade in hand, cleave what knotted. I am
of the same stripe as she who cries into the thorned canopy. I
follow her gaze to the engraved steeple, bricked with birds’ nests. 

Talus, alveolus, speak the landscape of a body. Thoughts pile
up, bent, twined, twisted as flowers.

 

Circumstances Legible Behind This Window

What is raw in me again, burst blister, lamb’s lettuce.

Fixed to hang on syllables, frivolous and drowsing. All modifiers
are contagious. Complacent. Glowing. All modifiers slip me in
the direction of the sea.

Without the residue of fixed habits, I loosen my gauge to make
sweet the absences. Lace is made of holes. Like a bassinet on a
lower step, my hum rocks side to side. Water diminishes in the
basin as the days grow drier. I say guard and mean keep.

 

To Hold What's Tender

Baby bathes
My lip bruised
from his hard crown
              Lean down
his palm along my cheek
repeating “gentle”
hurts a little

 

Bruised Peaches

We measure days in peaches, bruises, livid, lose the keys
Find them days later in the dirty laundry. What is habit
That it wakes me up to effort? I cook but don’t dust, read
In bed, wash the sheets occasionally. Eat the peaches
Before they mold, wear wool socks against a cold July.
My signature slants “O” to a recognizable angle—what is
Unnoticed is unchanging; the B negative of my blood, unchecked,
Will reject babies that could have poisoned me in another age.
Might effort tilt the ratios of my articles, definite stamp of
All I’ve heard and hardened indefinite in what I make. A child is
Variable flung from the cells, being, substance-sewn
Self. In coming hours, a turn, determined angle, harkening,
Effortless. Biology wakes me to that cry. Subterranean
Singing through the fabric, thin-spread-thing, I am still here.

 

Umbilical

Blue umbilical pulse to cut, my last placenta
Stuck, the doctor scrubbed elbow-deep, that flesh
Suddenly neither of us, excess, would rot inside me.
I held him, purple still and scrawny, bawling.
Hot blankets, shivering, sweat-wracked, hormone high—
What is in the body, yours, mind, all mouth? We are
Our parts, not a self apart, grow new ancillaries, collaborate
On blood. My son nears three now, swipes and taps
Glass-faced watch-hands, asks if the umbilicus plugs
Into the wall, charged up on Coca-Cola, wails, “hard peaches
Are my favorite.” He wants what’s unripe. I slice and macerate
With sweet and salt and mint, tired now beyond cheek’s fuzz
And bloom. New one, I made you a room inside my mind.
Still you’ll split my skin to quit me.

“Reproduction of Frescos,” “I Could Not Ask Other Flowers,” and “Circumstances Legible Behind This Window,” were previously published in Touch the Donkey, #21. 

---

The Inadequacy of Words

“Memory, like a good poem, can be returned to again and again, yielding new meanings from new angles,” says Brooke Evans ’19, who completed their Plan in writing in December. “When we write, we hold each memory in our hands, turn it, see past and present overlap.” The main component of Brooke’s Plan blends poetry and prose in a nonlinear, braided life-writing piece titled “As I Left It,” where prose rooted in childhood memories weaves into poetic forms that seek to collect and connect fragments. Their original works are supported by an essay reflecting on C.D. Wright’s idiosyncratic style and influence on their own experimental explorations. “What drew me to experiment with form and outside of conventional forms in my poetry and prose was the inadequacy of words alone to convey what I aim to express.”

 

 

 

 

Silencing the Most Vulnerable
By Nick Creel

In June 2018, five journalists working at the Capital in Annapolis, Maryland, were violently gunned down, and two others were injured. Only 48 hours before, far-right journalist Milo Yiannopoulos remarked to reporters that he “[couldn’t] wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight,” and US President Donald Trump has repeatedly labeled the free press as “the enemy of the people.” While the gunman’s motives have been deemed more personal than political, any observer could connect the dots—the far right has been spouting anti-journalist rhetoric for decades. 

When the Nazi Party came to power in 1933, one of the first actions the government took was to gain control over all media available to Germans. The party flooded their own newspapers and radio stations with anti-Communist rhetoric, then framed dissident journalists as traitorous Communists. With the general population filled with fear, it was simple for the government to imprison dissidents, destroy the offices of anti-Nazi newspapers, and, as the regime continued to gain power, kill any journalists who spoke against the regime. 

In modern America, the government doesn’t have to lift a finger against journalists. Anti-journalism rhetoric shared by Trump, Yiannopoulos, and countless other far-right figureheads is striking fear and hatred into the hearts of sympathetic Americans across the country. Firearms flow freely, without restriction, and if enough angry Americans with guns believe that the free press is out to destroy America, who’s to say that they won’t take action? 

Why would the far right be interested in suppressing journalism? Because without journalism, there is no one to reveal the atrocities committed against people of color, women, queer people, trans people, disabled people, or political dissidents. Without journalism, there is no one to hold fascists accountable to the rest of the world in hopes of stopping the continued destruction of human rights, not only in the US, but around the world. The far right wants its cultural and economic hegemony to continue, and removing journalists from the picture only makes that goal easier to obtain. 

Allowing fear to control our lives is not the solution that will bring fascism to its knees. We must support one another throughout the struggle and continue to fight back against those who would like to keep us silent, both to ensure a safe future and to commemorate the fighters we’ve lost along the way. 

Nick is a senior at Marlboro, completing a Plan of Concentration in computer science and writing, with a focus on interactive narratives. This editorial is excerpted and adapted from an essay originally posted on Cripple Magazine.

Truth in Humor 

Amber Schaefer ’10 studied political theory at Marlboro, but soon leveraged her communication skills into a career in comedy video— mostly directing, but writing and acting as well. “I like that I get to fall in love with every aspect of the production,” she says. 

It was the height of the economic recession when Amber Schaefer graduated from Marlboro, with no savings and no safety net. After a brief stint working as a counselor with women transitioning out of prison in New York City—she wrote her Plan about felony disenfranchisement, something she still feels passionate about—she found her calling in filmmaking, and particularly comedy. She started taking classes at Upright Citizens Brigade, a New York–based improvisational theater and training center, and got an internship at a production company. 

“I was only scheduled for one or two days a week, but I just showed up every day, even on weekends, and quickly made myself irreplaceable,” says Amber. “They hired me after two weeks and I basically didn’t leave that office for three years. That was my film school. Now I direct commercials for my main bread and butter, but am gleefully moving into the narrative space.” For example, Amber’s short film It’s Been Too Long was chosen as a Vimeo Staff Pick and was nominated for Best of the Year. 

Amber is typically working on three or more projects at a time, from commercials for Geico, Dos Equis, Burrow, and Casper, to personal projects like her “super weird” Found Auditions Project, where she and a colleague create real, authentic, completely fabricated audition tapes. She recently worked on several short videos in support of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, which she calls “very, very silly videos parodying perfume ads and those ridiculous 1-900 ads from the ’80s and ’90s, but the messaging is sincere. It feels good to work on something I believe in.” Learn more. 

“I love what I do and I love being busy,” says Amber, who is drawn to every aspect of video production. “I’m kind of a nightmare generalist with a bad case of ADD. For directing that’s a boon, because it’s important that I know a little bit about everything but still have the ability to zoom out and not get lost in the weeds. I like that I get to fall in love with every aspect of the production—the music score, the color correction, the lighting—just a little bit, but my eye is allowed to wander.” 

Amber credits Marlboro with teaching her how to be a better person and how to communicate, essentially her entire job as a director: listening to others, sharing her vision, convincing people of things, problem solving. She also found being part of committees and taking part in Town Meeting enormously empowering, by creating a bond of respect between teachers and students. “I firmly believe that when students are treated like adults they are much more likely to act like them, and democracy is cool.” 

She says her work with politics professor Meg Mott taught her that everything we do is political and has political consequences. “This has made me very mindful of the work I put out into the world, and I’m grateful for it.” 

You can see some of Amber’s work at ambermakes.tv. 

Photo by Meredith Jenks 

---

Class notes are listed by year and include both graduates and nongraduates; the latter are listed under the class with which they are associated. 

’69 
In September and October, JOHN ATCHLEY presented an exhibit of his photographs at the Hunt Library in Falls Village, Connecticut. The exhibit, titled “Tales from the Golden Age and Other Stories,” featured new works incorporating a gold-leaf printing technique developed by John. After receiving a master’s degree in photography at Yale in 1972, John pursued work in construction for 35 years before picking up his camera again in 2010 to focus on his love of nature. See his work at johnatchleyphotography.com. 

’80 
“Those who take on risk are not those/ Who bear it. The sign said to profit/As they do, trade around the one/Particular. Let them credit what you hunt,/Let future perform,” writes SOPHIE CABOT BLACK. Her poem “To burn through where you are not yet” was published in the December 2 issue of The New Yorker. Hear Sophie read it.

“A 210-year-young stone farmhouse in southern Pennsylvanian became our new home this year,” writes STEVEN SMITH. “My wife seems determined to farm as much of the six-acre plot as she can and name every deer, groundhog, and baby fox she sees. I am more focused on how to get WiFi to work through two-foot stone walls.” 

’84 
DANIEL MORRISON writes, “For the past 14 years, I have been the pastor of Huntingdon Valley Presbyterian Church in suburban Philadelphia. I’m married (Eva) and have a nine-year-old daughter (Mia) still at home. Our two 20-somethings (Rosie and Calvin) have long since flown the coop. In addition to my vocational work, I find time for avocational interests, most of which involves digging in archives and library stacks. In other Marlboro news, for the past two years I’ve been shacking up with SAM WOOD ’84. Sam and I lived together in West Philadelphia following my graduation from Marlboro, and fortune again smiled on us to be housemates. Sam writes for the Philadelphia Inquirer, as he has for the past 30 years. He currently works on the business desk and is their marijuana (yes, it is big business) specialist. Sam and I periodically cross paths with KITSIE BURK MALENEY ’84, who also lives near Philadelphia, and, now that she is an empty-nester, devotes her time to running a small farm and fundraising for a homeless shelter. And this past summer, I sat down in a Vermont coffee shop with KATIE KRAMER ’75 to talk about her fascinating intellectual memoir, Missing History: the Covert Education of a Child of the Great Books” (see Potash Hill Summer 2011). 

’86 
MARK FEINTHEL recently retired from the Virginia branch office of Bloomberg, where he was employed as a research analyst of labor data. He presumably will return to his original path as an artist. For the time being, he is simply enjoying having more time to be with his family, and takes long walks with his dog in the woods. He laments the pending closure of Marlboro, and wishes all his former classmates well. 

’89 
Congratulations to VAUNE TRACHTMAN and MARCUS DESIENO ’10 for being shortlisted for the Hariban Award, an international competition presented by Benrido Collotype Atelier. “I’m honored to be in the company of so many incredible photographers from around the world!” says Vaune. 

---

Levi Gershkowitz ’11: Patient Advocacy through Storytelling 

“I’ve been inspired by a love for travel and life’s diversity—encountering cultural views and expressions that I wouldn’t otherwise know,” says Levi Gershkowitz. Levi is founder and CEO of Living in the Light, which uses photography, video, and personal narratives to document the effects of rare genetic diseases on families and individuals. “I was led to patient advocacy through working with refugees,” he says. 

Levi completed his bachelor’s in Holocaust and genocide studies at Keene State College, including a personal journey to face the dark history of Poland and Ukraine. He also worked as a Thai massage and reflexology practitioner, giving him hands-on experience working with people’s bodies. Both experiences taught him a lot about healing, and contributed to his establishing Living in the Light. 

“I saw the need for collective healing for groups of people, and the strength and healing that can come from witness and solidarity.” Since its founding in 2012, Living in the Light has featured the experiences of more than 400 families and individuals living with over 60 rare conditions—from lysosomal storage diseases to degenerative brain conditions—empowering these people to be seen as people, not patients, and to be heard in their strength advocating for their needs. 

“The education we were offered at Marlboro was interdisciplinary, dynamic, and original, and I’d say all those same qualities exist at Living in the Light,” says Levi. “But what I love most about the work we are bringing to the world is the people: abandoning fear in exchange for authentic and love-filled connection.” 

Learn more at frompatienttoperson.com.

---

 

’91 
In August, MAIA SEGURA was awarded a silver award for her article in Vermont Business Magazine on treehouses, “tiny palaces in the sky, which offer the adventurous traveler a promised-for ‘something wild.’” The recognition came from the Alliance of Area Business Publishers, in their annual Editorial Excellence awards. Learn more. 

’92 
In October, ALEX GARDNER gave a talk and reading on campus from his book The Life of Jamgon Kongtrul the Great, about a 19th-century Tibetan who forever changed the face of Buddhism by collecting, arranging, and disseminating the traditions of Tibet across sectarian lines. “One of my missions in the book was recovering Kongtrul’s humanity from all the legend and myth that has grown up around him,” Alex says in an interview on buddhistdoor.net.

“I’m still living in East Montpelier, Vermont, with my three goats, six chickens, aged yellow Lab, and beloved rescue dog,” writes BETSY UNGER. “Serious illness finally took me out of the English classroom after decades of joy. Four years ago, it got greedier and took me from the wide world altogether, leaving me primarily bed-bound but definitely unbowed. I still write poetry. I just had a piece published in the Bellevue Literary Review’s fall issue.” 

’93 
JENNIFER WATSON writes, “After years of good and bad jobs, life lessons, and the devastating loss of my family’s home in Hurricane Katrina, I finally found my way to professional happiness and fulfillment. I now have my own small business as a jewelry artisan and children’s black-and-white photographer, and my incredible transgender daughter and I travel the state doing arts and craft shows together. I was even invited recently to become part of an artists’ collective called RAW: Natural Born Artists. I love being a fulltime artist, and my kiddo is the most amazing person I’ve ever met. In her I see that same independent, creative, nonconformist free spirit that embodied the people and the place that were Marlboro when I was there.” 

’96 
“Mendel, Issac (now 4), and I moved to Issaquah, Washington, right outside of Seattle,” writes JANAN GUILLAUME. “I am with the same company, EagleView, but working now from our Bellevue office. I am falling in love with the Pacific Northwest.” 

’97 
“Hey all from Portland, Oregon,” writes RADHA ROGERS. “I had the great pleasure of returning to Marlboro to visit last fall with several alumni friends. It was so great to see old friends and visit the school. My husband, Carlos, and I bought our first house. It’s been a few very exciting years. After 10 years as the middle school Spanish, cooking, health, and garden teacher at Portland Jewish Academy, I’m beginning a new job next month as the culinary arts teacher at the Durham Education Center, an alternative high school.” 

’98 
In October, coffee entrepreneur DAGMAWI IYASU was on campus to make a presentation titled “Ethiopians: The Coffee People.” Dagmawi discussed the role of culture and technology in human resource and sustainable development, and of course coffee, followed by Q&A over a cup of awesome coffee. See the whole thing. 

’99 
HEIDI WAGNER writes, “This fall I began a new position as the program coordinator for the online construction engineering and management MS degree in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. SD Mines is a pure STEM school, making it an interesting comparison to a Marlboro educational experience.” 

TAMARA RAUSA-DONATELLI visited campus in February with her family. She writes, “I am originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and I chose Marlboro because I thought it would be an experience unlike anything else in my life. I was right. Academically and personally, I carry those experiences with me every day. Recently, I had a serendipitous encounter with another Marlboro graduate. I am an ER physician in Pennsylvania, and I was transferring a patient to a hospital in Philadelphia in the middle of the night. The physician I was transferring the patient’s care was STEPHEN “VLAD” HUNT. We were friends for years at Marlboro, worked as RAs together, only to be reunited 10 years later, seemingly randomly, in the care of others. Pretty amazing. I definitely took a bite off the apple from the Marlboro apple tree and am forever enamored with the college, the campus, and the people. 

---

Desmond Peeples ’13: Community in Rural America 

“Writing is everything to me,” says Desmond Peeples, who completed their MFA in writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts in January. “Good writing is good thinking. Good thinking becomes thoughtful action. Thoughtful action becomes a graceful life. That is what I love about writing—that when I stray from writing, I stray from the path, and when I return, it all returns with me.” 

Desmond is the founder of Mount Island, the Brattleboro-based small press and literary magazine dedicated to creating space for the voices of rural LGBTQ+ and people of color to be heard on their own terms, and to finding solidarity in community. It is intended for anybody who wants to see rural America for what it really is, in all its diversity. 

“It matters that we be together,” says Desmond. “That we’ve shared the same solitary path through the woods, the same pang of loneliness cut short by the gasp of beauty—crystal stream, bluebird, the green and gold canopy, life. That we can gather together as who we are, unbothered, and that we welcome others to raise their spirits in affinity—that matters.” 

Although Desmond’s own work ranges from nonfiction to poetry, their current focus is in fabulist fiction. They are also the communications director for the Brattleboro Words Project, a community storytelling project backed by the National Endowment for the Humanities and local partners including Marlboro College. Desmond credits the rigorous research, clear writing, and dearness of community experienced at Marlboro with helping them in all of these endeavors. 

Learn more at mountisland.com. 

---

 

’02 
In January, KATE HOLLANDER visited campus to read from her first collection of poems, My German Dictionary, winner of the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize. She writes, “The book grows out of my experiences as a student, scholar, and teacher of Central European history and culture. It is a guide to an idiosyncratic interior country, a map of the experience of absorbing and being absorbed by German language, culture, aesthetics, and history, a catalogue of small beloved things inflected by massive horrors.” 

’03 
MATTHEW TEMPLE released his new movie, Hardball: The Girls of Summer, in September. The film follows five women of the US Women’s National Baseball Team as they battle for recognition and a gold medal in the Women’s Baseball World Cup. “It has been a true honor to be able to tell the story of these amazing women and their fight to play baseball,” says Matthew. The film had its theatrical premiere at the Women Sports Film Festival in San Francisco in September. Learn more at hardballfilm.com. 

’04 
In November, ELIZABETH THEIS presented a short film that she wrote and directed as part of the fifth annual Ax Wound Film Festival in Brattleboro, the official film festival of Women in Horror month. The film, Lizzie Boredom, is about a reclusive sociopath who has convinced herself she’s a television star following a traumatic childhood. The festival also included a filmmaker Q&A hosted by ANNIE ROSE MALAMET ’12. 

’09 
LILY SAGE is a permaculturalist, doula, and Montessori pedagogue/nature connection mentor who is interested in questions of symbiosis, intersectional feminism, and anti-racist/anti-fascist praxis. She has studied in the fields of herbalism, visual/performance art, anthropology, and political theory in Germany, Mongolia, and the US. She is most excited right now about presenting learning materials at the New Moon Mycology Summit, the prospect of filtering the Schuylkill River of petrochemicals using mycelial filtration, a mobile herbal free clinic, working on decolonizing school curriculums, and establishing abortion doula programs throughout her city. 

’10 
In December, ANDRÉ PEREZ was on campus as an outside examiner and presented the documentary series America in Transition, which he directed and produced. The series explores relationships, community, and social issues with trans people of color. Killer Movie Reviews says, “America in Transition depicts the harsh realities of living in a transphobic society, but it refuses to surrender to despair.” Learn more at americaintransition.org. 

“The Green New Deal (GND) exemplifies how democratic socialists can envision future commitments to economic justice,” writes KENTON CARD in an August paper in Jacobin titled “Bernie Should Declare Housing a Human Right.” He said, “The GND does not make the important connection between the climate crisis and where and how we build our homes.” Learn more. 

’11 
ALICE PACKARD writes, “I have recently relocated to Los Angeles after three years working in the Chicago film community. I took advantage of the trip out west and did a 15-day road trip where I saw a handful of Marlboro alums along the way, including GREGORY MEYERS ’08, SAM LOWENTHAL ’09, SETH SEMPERE ’09, ALEXIA BOGGS ’13, SEAN PYLES ’13, and JOELLA SIMONS ADKINS ’12. It was really a great transition to my somewhat daunting adventure to see so many friendly faces on my way.” 

’14 
After working in admissions at Marlboro since 2015, KARA HAMILTON accepted a position at Youth Services in Brattleboro, where she serves as a case manager for homeless and at-risk youth as well as managing the agency’s Transitional Living Program. “I am grateful to have experienced Marlboro as both a student and a staff member. It was an honor to serve alongside so many dedicated staff members whose work often goes unobserved.” 

In October, writer and editor LEZA CANTORAL was on campus for a reading and conversation with philosopher Lindsay Lerman and philosophy fellow Casey Ford titled “From Somewhere to Nowhere.” Leza is editor-in-chief of Clash Books, which recently published Lindsay Lerman’s debut novel, I’m From Nowhere, and also host of the Get Lit with Leza podcast where she “talks to cool ass writers.” She is author of Trash Panda, a collection of poetry, and Cartoons in the Suicide Forest, a collection of short fiction, and the editor of Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana Del Rey and Sylvia Plath.

’19 
HENRY ROBINSON had two ceramic sculptures from his senior Plan show selected by Sunshine Cobb for the Clay Festival 2019 International Juried Exhibition, titled Current. Both works sold on opening night into private collections. He also had another sculpture selected for the Annual Rhode Island Open Exhibition in his new hometown of Warwick, Rhode Island, and was chosen as a ceramics resident for a micro-residency program at the Steel Yard, Providence, Rhode Island. 

CLAYTON CLEMETSON and MARCEA MACINNIS ’05 are collaborating to create a three-week singing and cycling camp in Ecuador in June 2020. Marcea was Clayton’s leader during the 2011 Ecuador Semester with Kroka Expeditions, a “transformative experience” for Clayton that influenced his decision to pursue holistic education at Marlboro. “This collaboration is a dream come true,” says Clayton. “It is incredible to be working alongside Marcea eight years after I was her student, and it was especially exciting to realize that we shared a Marlboro education.” Learn more. 

---

Sarah Pidgeon MBA ’18: Making Green Energy Accessible 

For her Capstone project, Sarah Pidgeon worked with a nonprofit environmental organization called Solar One to support education on climate change in the New York school system. Since graduating, she has been promoted to co-director of programs at Solar One, providing green workforce training for adults and K-12 education centered around renewable energy and climate change. 

“Solar One is an incredible organization to work for,” says Sarah. “With the recent passing of the Climate Mobilization Act in New York City, it is crucial that we make sure that renewable energy is accessible, and that all New Yorkers have access to high-paying jobs in the clean energy sector.” 

Solar One’s workforce program collaborates with organizations that support individuals who are unemployed, underemployed, or who have been impacted by the justice system, offering them hard-skills training in green construction and solar installation. The organization’s K-12 education program provides career-focused, hands-on programming for high school students and professional development training for teachers to incorporate climate change and renewable energy into their classroom curriculum. 

“My experience at Marlboro has really supported me as I have grown in my role at Solar One,” says Sarah. “The tight-knit community and focus on collaboration and systems really made an impact on how I approach my work and my life. I feel incredibly grateful for my experience at Marlboro and for all of my friends and the phenomenal faculty.” 

Learn more at solar1.org. 

---

 

Former Faculty 
STAN CHARKEY, music faculty emeritus, premiered a new work at the Brattleboro Music Center in September, titled “J/J,” for cello and string orchestra, written for his son and resident artist Jacob Charkey. “I wanted to write a piece for Jake that connects to his experiences in both the Western and Indian traditions,” said Stan. “It’s called ‘J/J’ for Jake and Juno,” he said, referring to the Juno Orchestra, which accompanied Jacob in the premier. 

CAROL HENDRICKSON, anthropology faculty emerita, published an entry in the International Encyclopedia of Anthropology (Beyond Texts volume), edited by Hilary Callan, and published by John Wiley & Sons. Learn more. 

JIM TOBER, economics faculty emeritus, led an August walk around campus titled “Potash Hill—The Years before Marlboro College,” on behalf of the Marlboro Historical Society. A group of 25 or so participants joined the walk, and compared historic photos of the land and buildings with their current appearance. They also walked to the site of a former sugar house, and speculated on the location of the original potashery, where potash was produced. 

In August, former president ELLEN MCCULLOCH-LOVELL was appointed interim executive director of Vermont Studio Center (VSC), the renowned international artists’ and writers’ residency program in Johnson, Vermont. In her role, part of an initiative to reshape VSC for the future, she will manage and assess operations while working with the board of trustees to identify and hire a permanent executive director. 

In January, JIM TOBER and CAROL HENDRICKSON had a two-person art exhibit at the Crowell Gallery of the Moore Library in Newfane. Jim suggested calling it “What Social Scientists Do after They Retire,” but they settled on “Bricolage.” It included many of Jim’s collages and some of Carol’s journals and artist’s books, several of which grew out of her artist’s residency at Everglades National Park. 

In September, former theater professor GEOFFRY BROWN launched a website to make his full series of 120 dramatic monologues, titled “Quintessential Americans,” available free of charge for download and use by history and drama students. Learn more. 

---

Book Shelf 

“I didn’t go outside often. Instead, I wrote, trying to contain the hunger for living, for real life, that literature stoked in me. I prowled the stairs to the top floor and back, hoping to ease this craving, to find inspiration without straying too far from my computer.” —Deni Béchard, My Favorite Crime

My Favorite Crime (Talonbooks, 2019), by Deni Béchard ’97, is a collection of essays that are at once personal and political. The first section describes Deni’s tumultuous relationship with his father (Potash Hill Winter 2013), while the second is long-form journalism, on topics ranging from children accused of sorcery and exorcised in Kinshasa to female vigilantes responding to rape culture in India. This is followed by a collection of dispatches from Afghanistan and a number of other countries. The final section includes essays on writing, especially the importance of political writing. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Code Name Madeleine: A Sufi Spy in Nazi-Occupied Paris (W.W. Norton, 2020), by Arthur Magida ’67, is the story of Noor Inayat Khan, a poet, musician, author, and undercover agent who invigorated the French Resistance. After outlasting most other radio operators, Noor tried to escape twice from a Nazi prison in Paris. Sent to Germany, she was shackled in solitary, then executed at Dachau. Code Name Madeleine brings to life this young mystic who wrote, “The heart must be broken in order for the real to come forth.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My German Dictionary (Waywiser Press, 2019) is the first book of poems from Kate Hollander ’02 and winner of the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize. Complementing Kate’s work as a historian, these poems are home to and haunted by the Great War, Bertolt Brecht, Rosa Luxemburg, enchanted bears, Weimar Berlin, and vanished relatives, along with an entire alphabet of mishearings, mnemonics, and valentines for the German language. “A book of startling, radiant images that ferry the poems to their destinations of discovery and illumination,” writes former Poet Laureate Charles Wright. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Life of Jamgon Kongtrul the Great (Shambhala, 2019), by Alex Gardner ’92, is a historical biography of the 19th-century Tibetan teacher who forever changed the face of Buddhism. Known as the “king of renunciates,” Jamgon Kongtrul collected and disseminated the lineage traditions of Tibet at a time when the region experienced extreme sectarian and political divides, and his collections continue to be taught and transmitted throughout the Himalayas. Alex provides an accessible and intimate glimpse into the life of this important Tibetan Buddhist teacher. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lines of Sight (Dorrance, 2018) is a debut poetry collection from James Pavlakis ’58. In poems ranging from witty to philosophical, personal to universal, rhymed and free verse to experimental, James observes or comments on the human condition with clarity and strength. Accessible, thought-provoking, Lines of Sight explores big topics while neither erecting barriers to comprehension nor dumbing it down. Kirkus Review says, “Alternating between traditional verse, heaped lines, and poetic structures…the author’s poems have a dynamism that’s similar to that of poet Ron Silliman’s The New Sentence.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Complex Ecology (Cambridge University Press, 2018), edited by Charles Curtin ’86 (see page 8) and Timothy Allen, presents key research papers responding to new environmental challenges that defy quantifiable solutions. From climate change to species extinction, complexity-based ecology provides a new paradigm for ecologists and conservationists keen to embrace the uncertainty that is pressed upon us. The papers are set alongside first-person commentary from many of the seminal voices involved, and show how the shifting of wider perspectives allows new ideas to take hold. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Catch a Wave: Remembering Paul Nelsen 
By Molly Horton Booth ’14 

“. . . ‘Time and tide wait for no man’ nor woman neither so get your surf boards out folks and catch those waves forward.” 

Beloved Marlboro theater professor Paul Nelsen passed away August 2019. I was lucky enough to be one of his last Plan students before his retirement, and I miss him so much. I miss his genius. I miss his sharp and kind wit. I miss his eyes lighting up with excitement. 

Every other draft of this piece, to remember Paul, I’ve begun with quotes from various Shakespeare plays. Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Winter’s Tale. But I’ve been re-reading emails from Paul, and I stumbled onto one he sent out to a group of his Plan students in mid-February of 2013, excerpted above. 

This email was incredibly cheery and encouraging. Almost maddeningly so. Though we were in the thick of it, Paul assured us we were “bright, capable, and had vision.” Though Plan had kicked in full force and every day seemed like a theatrical nightmare, Paul insisted we all continue to meet together once a week to check in. He expected us to hold ourselves upright even when we were on the verge of collapse. I remember during this time I came to class two minutes late, and Paul chided me, “Molly. Better late than never.” 

So yes, Paul’s expectations soared through the roof, into the sky, possibly landing somewhere on the moon, possibly somewhere farther. He expected us to turn in work, to thoughtfully critique each other, to reach higher and higher even as we felt like sinking into the mud and letting the Marlboro campus absorb us. 

But Paul didn’t just expect you to work hard. Paul expected you to enjoy it. To Paul, research was as thrilling as catching wave after wave. If we crashed, we were to immediately process the experience as useful and therefore delightful. Get back on that surfboard. Catch a bigger wave. Enjoy the next crash, and the next. 

This was not my default setting. Given the option, I chose binge-watching TV over homework, most of the time. My research and writing often felt torturous and terrifying. But every week, when each of us Plan students recounted our progress, Paul listened as if we had discovered a new path to buried treasure. He’d lean forward, his eyes would light up, and he would smile so big his cheeks might burst. Truly, I can’t picture Paul without imagining him like this. Paul’s presence transformed our frustrating processes, and we remembered how exciting each and every moment of being a Plan student was. 

In Shakespeare’s time, humanity believed that our universe expanded and overlapped in crystal spheres that contained the stars, sun, moon, planets. The movement of these spheres created beautiful music—the sound of the universe and creation in harmony. Paul’s song is such a sound, and when I feel writing and art and research the way I should, with joyous rapture, I can still hear it. 

Molly Horton Booth did her Plan of Concentration in writing and fiction, including writing a young adult novel about time-traveling to the original production of Hamlet at the Globe playhouse, a place she traveled to with Paul when she was on Plan. She has now published two YA novels with Disney Hyperion, and is a freelance writer and editor. Find a full obituary for Paul at marlboro.edu/paul. 

William Horridge ’51 
A Marlboro pioneer and longtime supporter of the college, Bill Horridge died in July 2019. Born in New Jersey, Bill attended local schools and graduated from the Peddie School in Heightstown, New Jersey. He attended University of Pennsylvania before joining the Army Counter-Intelligence Corps, and was deployed to the Philippines. He graduated from Marlboro College where he developed a love for Vermont, designed a beautiful class ring, and collaborated with other students to design the original woodcut Marlboro seal. Bill spent 27 years as chief of security at Picatinny Arsenal, then retired to become the resident broom maker and wood carver at Waterloo Village as well as stocking trout for the state of New Jersey. Later, Vermont beckoned, and he purchased, renovated, and restored the Eagle Tavern in East Poultney to be an innkeeper. He carved duck decoys and became a skilled cabinet maker. Bill’s great pleasures were sailing, skiing, camping, traveling, and sports cars. He is survived by his wife of 67 years, Gertrude, a son, and two grandsons. 

Gretchen Hebb Bean ’57 
A longtime resident of Scituate, Massachusetts, Gretchen Hebb Bean died in June 2019. Born and raised in Brattleboro, Vermont, Gretchen graduated from Brattleboro High School. Even though she found math and science classes challenging, she chose to study biology at Marlboro College. “Her love of science really took hold during her time at Marlboro, and I remember her telling me about a professor of hers who really pushed her to achieve and believe in herself,” says Gretchen’s daughter Lucy Bean Jenkins. She went on to earn her master’s degree in physiology at the University of Vermont, and finally her PhD in biochemistry at Boston University at the age of 46. She worked for many years in clinical and research labs, and later in life she founded Commonwealth Laboratories, where she worked until poor health forced her retirement at the age of 72. She volunteered as a Scituate Board of Health member for several years. She was the beloved wife of the late Richard A. Bean, with whom she shared 56 years of marriage. She is survived by her two children, her sisters Susan Hebb ’58 and Karen Hebb Piccolo ’68, who also attended Marlboro, nine grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews. Her family asked that donations be made to Marlboro College in her memory in lieu of flowers. 

Karen Stein Hall ’66 
We regret to report that we only recently learned that Karen Hall passed away in July 2008, at the age of 65. As of 2003, Karen reported in Class Notes having two beautiful granddaughters and surviving breast cancer. Karen grew up in Schenectady and attended Linton High School there before coming to Marlboro, where her Plan was in art history, focusing on the “protest painters” of American art in the mid-twentieth century. She married Terry Hall ’65, but they later divorced. Karen is fondly remembered by several people who grew up in Marlboro, having been a substitute teacher at the town elementary school. She went on to work in Schenectady as a casework supervisor at the New York State Office of Child and Family Services, which she described as working in “family court, police court, drug court, domestic violence court, the school system, horrible neighborhoods, elegant neighborhoods, and a truly awful system.” 

Catharine Kurth ’86 
A resident of West Hartford, Connecticut, Catherine Kurth died in August 2019 at the age of 56. Kate was born in Summit, New Jersey, and went to Hartford College for Women and Marlboro College, where she studied Irish history and literature. After college, Kate moved to San Francisco, California, and worked for Phoebus, a theatrical-lighting design company. She later returned to Connecticut to be closer to family, and for several years was a partner at Athena Trading Company, a home textiles design and manufacturing firm. Kate brought her artistic talent to many endeavors, and was a lover of literature, art, and design. She lived for travel, and had many adventures over the years both home and abroad, with some of her favorite memories from coastal Maine. Kate had the sharpest of minds, and she loved to match wits, challenge with trivia, and complete the New York Times Sunday crossword (in ink). She had a deeply generous spirit, and her family will always miss her keen intelligence, her wonderful laugh, and her loving heart. Kate is survived by her cousins and their families. 

Daan Zwick, friend 
Brother of former faculty member Huddee Herrick and a longtime supporter of Marlboro College, Daan Zwick of Rochester, New York, died in November 2019 at 97. Born in Burlington and a graduate of University of Vermont, Daan retired from a long career at Kodak, where he was a research scientist exploring image structure in color photography and the interface between motion picture film and color television. He and his wife, Janis Dowd, who predeceased him, were committed philanthropists and volunteers, active in Rochester Democratic politics and volunteering at the local American Civil Liberties Union chapter. An avid outdoorsman, Daan was a Green Mountain Club caretaker in the 1930s, an active volunteer into the 1980s, and a generous supporter of the club. His deep commitment to the Long Trail motivated him to financially support some of the club’s most significant projects, including the trail relocation through the Winooski River Valley and construction of the Winooski River suspension bridge. He is survived by four children, and six granddaughters and step-granddaughters, as well as his first wife, Laura Zwick.

Emily Mason, friend 
Renowned painter, honorary alumna, and longtime college supporter Emily Mason died in December at her hillside farm in Brattleboro, at the age of 87. Born in New York City, Emily graduated from New York’s High School of Music & Art and then studied at Bennington College before graduating from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. She was awarded a Fulbright grant to study painting in Venice, where she married artist Wolf Kahn, her husband of 62 years. She had her first solo exhibition at New York’s Area Gallery in 1960 and exhibited her work regularly thereafter, in New York and elsewhere. She also taught painting at Hunter College for more than 30 years. Her paintings are included in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, National Academy Museum, and Bennington Museum, among others. In May 2019 Emily and Wolf received honorary degrees from Marlboro for their long and generous support. In addition to Wolf, Emily is survived by two daughters and their families.

While this issue of Potash Hill was in production, we were saddened to learn of the death of Richard Liversage ’51 (see Potash Hill Spring 2017). We will plan on a full obituary in the next issue. 

 

Trail-Blazing Philanthropy

“I guess I tend to support the little guys— the ones that do not get the big bucks,” said Marlboro admirer and donor Daan Zwick. In 1996 Daan, a research scientist at Eastman Kodak Company, gave a landmark gift to Marlboro, pledging $150,000 per year for three years plus a charitable remainder trust in the amount of $550,000, the first gift of $1 million in Marlboro’s history. With Daan’s passing in November 2019, his forward-thinking generosity became part of Marlboro’s legacy. 

“I have admired the college, its goals and practices, ever since I first visited there in the 1950s,” said Daan, whose sister Huddee Herrick taught writing at Marlboro in the 1960s and 70s, and died in 1996. Huddee is remembered for hosting lively writing classes in her South Road house, crowded with her own colorful paintings, and serving dinner over poetry. Daan added, “I like the independence, the responsibility, the Plan, and the community that I see and feel at Marlboro.” 

An avid outdoorsman, Daan was a Boy Scout leader, a member of the National Ski Patrol, and a volunteer summit caretaker on Mount Mansfield for the Green Mountain Club. He helped care for the Long Trail and its shelters for decades, through his volunteering and philanthropy, starting with being the first caretaker for the Taylor Lodge, in Nebraska Notch, at the age of 15. In a memoir of that summer, published in Long Trail News, Daan describes Huddee visiting on Labor Day weekend and being scalded by an exploding can of beans. 

“My sister Huddee and her girlfriend hiked in to spend a relaxing weekend with me. As we sat quietly on a bunk talking, while waiting for the lunch crowd around the stove to thin out, there was a loud explosion, the oven blew apart, and Huddee started screaming…. More excitement in that 15 minutes than I had had all summer. I know Huddee didn’t appreciate it, but there was nothing like finishing up one’s first caretaking season with a bang.” 

The sense of responsibility gained by Daan on that first summer at Taylor Lodge stood him in good stead over the years, and he was a committed philanthropist his whole life, giving generously to the Green Mountain Club, United Way, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Eastman School of Music, and the American Civil Liberties Union. Marlboro is so grateful that Daan’s generosity extended to the college and will continue to support it during this challenging transition period ahead.