Jennifer Freed Publishes Debut Poetry Collection

From today's Boston Globe:

 

Debut poetry collection

In her moving and powerful debut collection, “When Light Shifts: A Memoir in Poems” (Kelsay), Jennifer L. Freed writes of her mother’s cerebral hemorrhage and its aftermath. She captures the surreality of the world continuing to spin in the midst of crisis. Her mother has a stroke on the driveway, as “The chipmunks raced on round the junipers. / The sun went on bleaching the clapboards.” A matter-of-factness speaks to the gravity of the moment: sometimes facts are all we can express. Freed’s poems are precise, but never unfeeling, and she is alert to the moments when words won’t take us where we need to go. These poems operate in the deepest wells of experience: fear and frustration and love and pain. “If I can name what I miss, / will I know where to look — / how to find it in her?”

Here website is here:  https://jfreed.weebly.com/

Here is Jennifer's bio:

Jennifer L. Freed is the author of When Light Shifts (Kelsay, 2022), based on the aftermath of her mother's stroke, and of a chapbook, These Hands Still Holding, a finalist in the 2013 New Women's Voices Competition (Finishing Line Press, 2014).  She was awarded the 2020 Samuel Washington Allen Prize for a long poem or poem-sequence (New England Poetry Club), has been a finalist for the Frank O'Hara prize multiple times, and has received multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Orison Anthology.  She writes and teaches in Massachusetts.

Less recently, Jennifer Freed's non-fiction describing her experiences as an English language teacher in Sichuan, China, was published in The Yale-China Review, and, in Chinese translation, in Cultural Meetings: American Writers, Scholars, and Artists in China (Guangxi Normal University Press).  

Her articles about life in Prague in the 1990s, shortly after the fall of the communist government, appeared in the travel section of The Boston Globe.  

Cameron Sanders

 In preparing for our Reunion, Yale has compiled a list of classmates who have passed away.  In reviewing the list, I learned that Cameron Sanders died just a few weeks ago.  Here is what his LA Times obituary had to say:

June 23, 1965 - May 6, 2022 Cam Sanders, 56, passed away peacefully on Friday, May 6, at his home in Los Angeles. Born in Cincinnati, he spent early peripatetic years as a Foreign Service child at his family's postings in the Middle East, Europe and Washington, DC.

He graduated from St. Paul's School, Yale, and Santa Monica College, and he was a long-time member of All Saints Church-Pasadena and a dedicated baritone in its Canterbury Choir. A remarkable photographer, he could capture your best self on film. He also was a passionate actor, tap dancer, Masters swimmer, pianist, writer, cutthroat Scrabble player, champion crossword puzzler, and dog adopter. Multifaceted as he was, he may be best remembered as a true friend and a very dear guy. He leaves behind beloved communities in all aspects of his life.

Cam was predeceased by his mother, Betsy Sanders, of Washington, DC. He is survived by his father, Cameron H. Sanders, Jr.; siblings Helen Gray, Marcia Loughran, and Nick Sanders; extended family David Loughran, Erika Erzberger, Julian Gray, and Kim Bender; nieces and nephews Jamie, Katherine, Emily, Jojo, Ben, Lillian, and Simon; his cherished Staffordshire terrier Grace, and more loving aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends than we have words to express.

Now we remaining must sing, dance, swim, surf, photograph, reflect, read, meditate, play piano, garden, bring home flowers, adopt a pet, drink good coffee, cook and eat together, be a great godparent and uncle/aunt, and read Tennessee Williams while acting out all the parts.

In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation to: All Saints Church Pasadena, the United Farm Workers Union, or Amnesty International.

Walking Tour at Reunion

Yale has changed a lot since 1987. The 35th Reunion Campus Walking Tour will refamiliarize you with your favorite haunts and introduce you to new buildings and sites on campus. Led by Yale graduate and New Haven resident Shana Schneider of FitstyleByShana, the hour-long walk will be brisk, but, as Schneider said, "No walker will be left behind!"

The walk is limited to 25 (there will be a waitlist). So tell your friends and sign up now:

https://connect.fitstylebyshana.com/register/reunion-35

– 9-10 a.m. on Saturday, June 4. Meet at the Rose Alumni House, 232 York St., near the Pierson College entrance.

Catherine Marquet Elliott -- new podcast episode

 Catherine Marquet Elliott has spent her adult life teaching French in a public school in Massachusetts.  Listen as she describes her journey form a young teacher who set out to teach French to a master teacher who realizes the classroom experience is about changing lives and helping young people transform.  Catherine thinks about the classroom and her students in a wholistic and inspirational way.   While this is a valuable conversation for everyone, it is particularly important for young people who might be thinking about becoming a teacher.  Catherine makes a powerful case for transforming the lives of students one class at a time. Here is how Catherine describes herself:  "I am a career classroom teacher in a public middle school. I have been teaching French in rural Massachusetts since 1989. Becoming a public school teacher is the best decision I have made in my life. It's been an incredible ride. If you know a young person who is interested in becoming a teacher, I hope that you will encourage them with enthusiasm."

Sunday, May 15, 2022

Rob Raguso -- new podcast episode

 

Rob Raguso is the closest thing Yale has to Indiana Jones.  He travels to remote jungles to study bugs.  He understands both art and natural history.  He is an integrative thinker who is just a joy to speak with.  Please spend 30 minutes eavesdropping on our conversation.  You will be glad you did.

Here is how Rob describes his work: "I study plant-insect interactions from molecules to ecosystems. I am an integrative and comparative biologist with an interest in the chemical senses. Everything begins with natural history."

Thursday, May 5, 2022

Charlotte Sussman -- new podcast episode

I spent some time with Charlotte Sussman recently talking about our shared passions of sailing and literature.  Charlotte is a Professor of English at Duke and recently the author of Peopling the World.  One website explains: Through a literary lens, Professor Charlotte Sussman examines the 18th-century shift in Britain’s understanding of the value of human reproduction, the vacancy of the planet and the necessity of moving people around to fill its empty spaces. In Milton’s 1667 “Paradise Lost,” Adam and Eve are promised they will produce a “race to fill the world,” a thought that consoles them after the fall. By 1798, the idea that the world would one day be entirely filled by people had become a nightmarish vision in Malthus’s “Essay on the Principle of Population.” Sussman places these and other texts in the context of debates about scientific innovation, emigration, cultural memory and colonial settlement.

Monday, May 2, 2022

Some thoughts on Reunion

As we get ready for our Reunion, it is a good time to reflect. As I think about it, I am very proud to be your classmate. Have I supported every decision and every statement a classmate has ever made? Of course not. Have some actions of our classmates been difficult to watch, or even worthy of condemnation? Yes. But, the sum of our experience is not to be taken from a single incident, a single statement, or a single person. Our measure as a class is and should remain the contributions we all have made, and will continue to make, for the betterment of our classmates' lives, the Yale community and the communities in which we live. When I take that measure, I see people who stand for what they believe, who live remarkable lives, and who make their world, and ours, better. Some do it in private ways – by raising amazing children, building businesses, healing the sick, advancing human knowledge and understanding and a myriad other ways you will never read about in the paper or hear about on a news show. Some live their lives more publicly, sharing their views through art, literature, film, legal activism, public service and politics. And, some have inspired others by battling difficult odds with grace and dignity. As a whole, our class is an engaged group of people from which I continually draw inspiration. So, I would ask that as you consider our class and its legacy, that you take a broad view and consider the breadth of what our classmates have accomplished and the lives they have lived.

I would also ask that as you come to Reunion you do so remembering that we cannot know the experiences our classmates have had since that Labor Day weekend in 1983 when we first met. So, please respect where people are coming from and where they've been. Take the time to listen -- to truly listen -- to each other. You need not agree with, or even like, everyone in our class. But, I would ask that you take the time to respectfully consider their point of view.

I would also ask that you take the time to enjoy the full weekend that has been planned. Some of it is serious, some of it is silly, most of it is social. Find your people. Find some new people. And, try to enjoy being together.

For each of us, Yale was a gift, the worth of which it has taken 35 years to fully appreciate. The Reunion is about being thankful for that gift, enjoying each other's company once again, and maybe, just maybe, finding a way to enrich our lives and the lives of those we love just a little bit more.

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)