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The Taconic Crest Trail crosses Petersburg Pass.

Tag:
Poetry

Kate Abbott
Fall color touches the Mount in Lenox.
Photo by Seth Davis
Writing

A writer’s library reveals Edith Wharton at home

September 12, 2019
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On the flyleaf of a book of Japanese poetry translated into French, penciled handwriting tries out haikus. Haiku would have been a less familiar form in the early years of the 20th century, when the owner of the book sat here in an arm chair, playing with ideas. The handwriting is Edith Wharton’s. […]

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Rachel Barenblat, rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in North Adams, is building a broad and warm community.
Rachel Barenblat / Photo by Daniel Beck
History

Rachel Barenblat and a circle of rabbis build a contemporary community

April 1, 2019
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At the foot of Mount Greylock, a round building with a wall of windows looks out at the the stone path of a labyrinth in the grass. The center of the room is a sanctuary, and a woman stands taking in the light. She moves with poised self-command and an […]

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Awardwinning poet Ross Gay read from his work on a spring day at Bennington College.
Ross Gay / Photo by Natasha Komoda
Writing

Ross Gay’s ‘Unabashed Gratitude’ surges with life

May 16, 2018
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On a spring night in Bloomington, Indiana, Ross Gay is planting young lettuces. Winter has hung on so long, a warm evening feels new — to stand barefoot in a troweled furrow with the air smelling of earth and stems, and peels in the compost pile.

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National Book award and Pulitzer prizewinning poet Louise Glück, who taught at Williams College for many years, returns to read her work.
Photo of Louise Glück / Courtesy of Williams College
Writing

National Book Awardwinning poet Louise Glück reads from ‘Faithful and Virtuous Night’

May 1, 2018
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A man lies awake — gets up to walk. He remembers sharing a room with his bother when they were boys, his brother reading by nightlight and the sound of his breathing. He remembers excursions with their aunt, taking a boat upriver, watching a city float by in the dark. […]

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American poet Ocean Vuong reads his new work rooted in the U.S. and Viet Nam.
Ocean Vuong / Photo by Tom Hines
Writing

Ocean Vuong holds calm in chaos with contemporary poetry rooted in Viet Nam

April 4, 2018
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In honor of National Poetry Month we honor and thank a poet who recently came to visit. Five years ago he was giving readings in Brooklyn —  Zachary Finch heard of them through a friend in the city and listened, awe-struck, to poems like Aubade with Burning City. Ocean Vuong […]

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Sun gleams on golden maple leaves in the Berkshire hills, where national poet laureate Richard Wilbur lived and found the spark for many of his poems.
Photo by Kate Abbott
Writing

Honoring Richard Wilbur, a national poet in the Berkshire hills — BTW column

October 26, 2017
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‘The morning air is all awash with angels.’ The early morning scene has stayed with me since high school. It isn’t etherial or oversweet. In the early light about dawn, a man wakes and hears the laundry going up to dry. ‘The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,’ concrete, […]

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A hand turns the pages of an open book. Creative Commons courtesy photo.
Photo by Kamil Porembiński
Writing

Phillip B. Williams — Love and sadness in free verse

May 24, 2017
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Bound, it begins. ‘Wasn’t night what lingered where sweat left / salt, where breath touch-expired?’ Bound is the title of the first poem in Phillip B. Williams ‘Thief in the Interior,’ a book that opens with confinement and insistent motion and closes with a movement outward into a changed life.

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Listeners share a drink on the roof in the annual WordxWord festival in Pittsfield in August.
Photo by Susan Geller
Writing

Pop Up Poets bring the word to the streets

April 7, 2017
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Poetry on a park bench? I once talked with three New York poets at once from my phone on Spring Street, and it seemed right, because that’s the way they perform their work. As National Poetry Month picks up momentum, here are the Pop Up Poets telling me how poems […]

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Nikki Giovanni joins MCLA students and visitors at the MCLA Institute for the Humanities' inaugural symposium in June 2019.
Nikki Giovanni / MCLA
By the Way

Internationally acclaimed poet Nikki Giovanni celebrates life and liberty in the Berkshires

March 10, 2017
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Internationally acclaimed poet and writer, professor and activist Nikki Giovanni took the mike and talked about “life, liberty and — what I most love — ‘the pursuit of happiness.’”

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The crowd dances at FreshGrass, Mass MoCA's annual bluegrass festival in September. Photo courtesy of Mass MoCA
FreshGrass / Photo courtesy of Mass MoCA
Music

FreshGrass tunes up at Mass MoCA

September 22, 2016
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Sunny, breezy and Saturday morning — Tony Pisano plays the first run of a dance tune from Quebec, and fiddles, mandolin, guitars, standing bass and bodhran come in around him …

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Kate Abbott
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