#warren wilson college

[salty-accords]

"Baby's River Trail #1-3."

A series of photos I took and edited on the Warren Wilson College River Trail last fall (2023). I'm rather fond of them and I thought the baby pinks and blues suited the setting well.💜🦄🧂

[doormatty3]

MASTERLIST

Minors do not interact!

Always feel free to message me about whatever you want - yes, I also take requests! I write smut for men I'm feral about ~

Check out my Ao3!

ONE-SHOTS: newest to oldest

Set Nerves - Patrick Wilson x Reader: How intimate scenes do not work in Hollywood 101 Onions and Orgasms - Orm Marius x Reader: You laugh about Orm’s horrible kitchen skills, and he shows you with what he *is* skilled The King's Broodmare - Orm Marius x Reader: Orm *makes* you submit to him and turns you into his perfect pet Echoes Of Madness - Possessed!Josh Lambert x Reader: Josh is possessed and possesses you with his cock A True Gentleman - Patrick Wilson x Reader: Patrick teaches you to be quiet while taking his cock Dirty Little Nun - Patrick Wilson x Reader: Patrick gets on his knees and makes you worship a different type of god

SERIES: newest to oldest

Whispers In The Shadows Josh Lambert x Reader:

Pushing Further - And they were roommates - except you fucked his dad Veiled Passions - Josh shows you who you belong to Pushing Further: Josh POV - How I fucked his friend in a college dorm room Veiled Passions: Josh POV - I show her who she belongs to

MULTIPLE CHAPTER FICS: newest to oldest

Ocean Eyes - Orm Marius x Reader: You impress Orm with the surface world and he impresses you with his Atlantean cock FINISHED, CHAPTER 8/8 Sinner's Salvation - Ed Warren x Reader: Ed shows you how well he can possess your body - and your cunt FINISHED, CHAPTER 2/2

ONE-SHOTS: newest to oldest

Till Next Time, Love - Matty Healy x FOC: Matty puts the cock in cockiness and does what he does best

[alouiadina]

Marvel/X-men high school au

So, I've had this idea for a while, and Deadpool & Wolverine reminded me that I had this idea, which I have been nervous to share. It's a Cherik no powers crossover

It starts with the aftermath of the a car crash which resulted death of Erik's wife Magda and their youngest, Nina. (As an aside, Pietro and Wanda are also their kids, and Peter is Erik's from a previous relationship, either a marriage or college one-night stand that ended in pregnancy). A couple months or maybe a year after their deaths, Wanda and Pietro get accepted into the Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters (which is a stem school in this universe) and Peter accepts a student-teaching (where a college student shadows a teacher) position there as well because he maybe feels guilt over not spending enough time with Nina when she was alive, so he accepts it so that he's able to spend time with twins. Or maybe he blames himself for her death or something.

Erik experience trepidation over sending, as he and Charles have a history. They dated in high school, then one day Charles left, leaving nothing, not even a note. So, when they meet during the welcome new parents and students meeting, he's surprised to see Charles there, not because he wasn't expecting him, but because he's in a wheelchair. They keep running into each other, maybe with some influence from Erik's kids as well as maybe Mistique.

For Peter's part of the story, he's under the tutelage of Logan, who teaches history. He's mostly professional, but he's also a little shit. Like, with seating charts, he takes note over who he thinks has a crush on who, and sits them next to each other. Or, the fact that he notices how he wants to project how one Wade Wilson annoys him to death, but only to hide that he secretly likes his attention. Peter tries to parent trap them, along with parent trapping Erik and Charles with some help.

Wanda and Pietro's part of the story is parent trapping their dad and principal, (at least) two of their teachers, as well as some of their friends, as well as each other (or at least just Pietro to Wanda) and maybe Peter too because maybe there is another student-teacher there.

other ships could include the thruce, lokius or Theo/Loki (maybe a love triangle there, idk), ironstrange, stucky. For X-men, like maybe Jean/Scott, maybe Kurt/Warren, or anything... dealers choice really. Maybe it could be in one story, or it could be like my no homophobia au. One fanfic per storyline, or whatever.

[fiercynn]

palestinian poets: tariq luthun

tariq luthun is a detroit-born, dearborn-raised community organizer, data consultant, and emmy award-winning poet. the son of palestinian muslim immigrants from gaza, he is a kresge arts in detroit fellow that earned his MFA from the program for writers at warren wilson college. he has been recognized as a best of the net poet and has earned fellowships from kundiman, the watering hole, and the kresge foundation. his work has appeared in vinyl poetry, lit hub, mizna, winter tangerine, and button poetry, among others. luthun currently serves as a board member of the offing literary magazine. his first collection of poetry, How the Water Holds Me, was published by bull city press in 2020. the press named the book an editors' selection.

luthun spends most of his time hosting events, working with youth, and facilitating marginalized communities for growth through expression and action. he is a deep dish pizza evangelist, and can best be described as the end-result of a less problematic drake falsetto-rapping edward said's orientalism.

luthun was also recently interviewed by national public radio about the current escalation in genocidal violence by israel against palestine. as of ten days ago, his family in gaza was all okay.

IF YOU READ JUST ONE POEM BY TARIQ LUTHUN, MAKE IT THIS ONE

OTHER POEMS ONLINE THAT I LOVE BY TARIQ LUTHUN

We Already Know This at literary hub

Al-Bahr at tariq's website

Portrait of My Father Drowning, originally published at crab orchard review

Fruit at up the staircase

Dance at winter tangerine

The Summer My Cousin Went Missing (read aloud) at tariq's website

Whisp at the offing

Mismarked (live performance) recorded by button poetry

Museums at voicemail poems

New Rule at the offing

[practically-an-x-man]

2, 3, 9, 10, 15, 16, 23 for Ophelia, Rae, and Jasper?

Ooooh thank you so much!!

OC Ask Game Time

2) Will they have any children? What are their names?

Ophelia: Probably not. She's never really been interested in becoming a parent.

Rae: Yes! She'll have a daughter named April and a son named August

Jasper: I'm not sure. It's not really on their plan at the moment, but I could see them and Kyle potentially adopting children further down the line.

3) When is your OC’s birthday or what is their zodiac sign if you haven’t picked a date yet? Answer both if you wish.

Ophelia: November 13th

Rae: December 6th

Jasper: October 30th

I don't really do zodiac signs so I wouldn't go looking for any significance there, I really just picked the dates at random save for intentionally making Jasper's the day before Halloween

9) What is your OC’s greatest wish/dream/goals?

Ophelia: She wants to feel like she's accomplished something meaningful in her life, and made her family proud

Rae: She wants to find happiness and safety without having to compromise the things or people she loves

Jasper: They want to help people, above all else.

10) Does your OC have a family tree? Who are their immediate and extended family if you created ones?

Ophelia: She doesn't have an extensive family tree - she's an only child, and isn't in contact with much of her extended family save for her father's mom (her Nonna). Neither side of her family particularly likes the other (her mom's parents always thought she could do better than a struggling scientist and didn't approve of his background, and her dad's parents were neglectful and abusive and he effectively jumped ship from that as soon as he could), so her immediate family really became its own little bubble. She definitely found a family in her father's friends and colleagues, though!

Rae: I haven't drawn it out into a tree, but she does have a very big family. She has two sisters, Jess and Ginny. Jess is married to a man named Harrison and has a son named Andrew, Ginny is currently single and working her way through uni. She's also got a lot of cousins and extended family members back in her hometown of Lochcarron, and sees them every year at a big New Year's Day reunion. Her dad's line of the family goes back in Lochcarron a long way - stemming from twin feral mutants who helped build most of the town with their bare hands when it was first created as a mutant settlement. Her mom's side of the family is originally from Edinburgh, though her grandmother divorced her first husband and fled to Lochcarron where she met Rae's grandfather. Her parents both grew up in town, only a few streets down from each other.

Jasper: I don't have a huge family tree for Jasper either, just a few threads. Their father's name is John Abraham Wilson, and he's one of five children. Jasper's mother Carmine doesn't talk about her family much - Jasper has heard vaguely of an aunt on that side, but they've been estranged since Carmine was in college so Jasper doesn't know much of anything about her. They grew up in close contact with their dad's siblings and all their cousins on that side of the family, but their mom's side of the family is still a big blank patch.

15) Has your OC ever fallen in love before who their intended love interest is, or is the intended love interest their first love?

Ophelia: Oh, she's a hopeless romantic. She's had a lot of past relationships and loved just about all of them, and it's usually ended in some form of tragedy for her. It's led her to worry her relationship with Peter will somehow fall apart like the rest, though she knows that's largely irrational.

Rae: Hm... bit of both? She's dated before, and some of those relationships got pretty serious, but what she has with Warren is on a whole different level. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I think she thought she'd fallen in love before, but it pales in comparison to what she feels for Warren and she didn't realize that until she met him.

Jasper: Kyle is their first love! They'd gone on a few dates here and there before him, but he's their first serious relationship and they fell hard.

16) Does your OC enjoy school or no? Did they get any education?

Ophelia: I'd say she enjoyed learning but didn't enjoy school. For one thing, she was an awkward, tall and curvy Jewish girl, and that definitely led to her being picked on a bit in grade school. And for another, it was hard to find a class that really challenged her, so school as a whole was just boring. As far as education, she has a Bachelor's in Medicine, and both a Master's and PhD in Biomedical Engineering.

Rae: She actually struggled a bit in school. She loved her foreign language classes and could have easily spent all her schooling just doing that, but when it came to other subjects, she just couldn't focus. Sometimes she'd even fall asleep in class, though that was mainly because her insomnia kept her up too late the night before. It was a very mixed bag for her. As far as education, she has a Master's in Foreign Language and has studied a whole host of various world languages.

Jasper: As a whole, they really did enjoy school. They struggled sometimes with particular teachers, classes, or issues with other classmates, but school as a whole was never an issue for them. As far as education, they got a degree in nursing and ended becoming an ER trauma nurse.

23) Is your OC religious and what religion? If it’s a fictional religion for your story please give a summary of the core teachings of their faith?

Ophelia: Yep! She was raised Jewish, and tries to subscribe to as many of those tenets as she can. She struggles with observing the Shabbat (since her life is so bound up with technology and she struggles to step away from her work), and doesn't feel like her tattoo should be considered "self-mutilation", but aside from that she sticks with as many of the traditions and practices as she can. Her faith was actually one of the things that helped her through the rough patches in her life.

Rae: She was raised vaguely Protestant and probably does believe in a generally Christian God, but she's not strongly religious and neither is the rest of her family.

Jasper: Not really religious or spiritual at all, save for keeping up few old Cajun superstitions they were raised into.

[fictionadventurer]

Hoover?

Herbert Hoover came from a very poor family in Iowa. After his parents died, he moved in with an uncle in Oregon, and worked at his land office. He didn't attend school after grade school, but when a Stanford recruiter came through, Hoover did so well on his tests (except English) that he was admitted to the college.

He met his wife Lou at Standford, where they both got geology degrees. Hoover got hired with a mining company, and he and Lou oversaw mining operations in Australia and Asia. They were both in China during the Boxer Rebellion. They worked together to translate an ancient Roman mining text for the first time, and they'd give bound copies of it to people as gifts. Lou spoke eight languages, and she and Herbert would speak Mandarin when they didn't want people to understand their conversations.

By the time Hoover was 40, he was a self-made millionaire, working with a company with offices on six continents and a headquarters in London, and while in London, he was looking for a way to engage with public life. Then WWI broke out. He and Lou worked together to set up a charity to help provide food and transportation for American stuck in Europe. Then the crisis in Belgium happened, and he worked with the Belgian government to start the Belgian Relief program. He eventually had 600 ships bringing food to the starving citizens of Belgium. He was called things like "the Great Humantarian" and "the Master of Emergencies".

This caught the attention of Woodrow Wilson, who brought him into his administration as a food administrator, encouraging Americans to reduce consumption of certain foods in light of the war effort. Hoover then became Secretary of Commerce under Warren Harding, and he massively grew that department. Calvin Coolidge put him in charge of disaster relief efforts in 1927 to respond to flooding in Mississippi, which increased his reputation of a guy who was great at responding to emergencies.

He was so popular that he was the obvious Republican candidate for president. Unfortunately, the guy who was a great humanitarian didn't have the personality or the experience to navigate the give-and-take of politics. He preferred just going in and getting the job done to having to work as part of the political machine. He alienated Congress before the Depression. After the Depression hit, he was doing a lot more behind the scenes to respond to things than the public realized at the time--and had more success than he was given credit for--but he was villainized for not wanting to start direct government programs to help people. That was something he had done a ton of as a private citizen, but he didn't think it was the role of the president to do things like that--he wanted to leave that kind of thing to private charities--which unfortunately gave him a reputation of being uncaring.

He was extremely active in his post-presidential life. After WWII, he was again put in charge of relief efforts to bring food to Europe. He ran the Hoover Commission that reorganized the executive branch of the government. He wrote tons of books and papers (and this from the guy who did so badly at English in college that he needed special permission to graduate). For a guy who had such a disastrous presidency, he actually had a pretty amazing and successful life, and I wish more people knew about it.

[storiesfabled]

updated muse list

under the cut you will find the most up-to-date muse list.

911

evan buckley

maddie buckley

charlotte buckley-diaz // rowan blanchard // buck & eddie daughter

eddie diaz

athena grant

may grant

howard han

tommy kinard

bobby nash

harper nash // er registrar // ashley benson // bobby & marcy daughter

jonah nash // firefighter // tyler blackburn // ray & margaret son

raymund nash // principal // d.w. moffett // bobby’s brother

russell nash // lawyer // jack coleman // bobby’s brother

matthew ransone // police officer // casey deidrick // lou’s son

josh russo

ashlynn wilson // college student // victoria justice // henrietta & karen daughter

henrietta wilson

karen wilson

911: lone star

nancy gillian

trevor parks

arianna reyes // maiara walsh // tk & carlos daughter

carlos reyes

gabriel reyes

gabriella ryder // troian bellisario // judd & grace daughter

grace ryder

jackson ryder // football coach & pe teacher // eric stonestreet // judd’s brother

judd ryder

weston ryder // oil tycoon // jeffrey dean morgan // judd’s brother

aubrey strand // madison davenport // owen & npc daughter

owen strand

tk strand

victoria strand // liana liberato // owen & npc daughter

paul strickland

billy tyson

billy tyson jr. // firefighter // steven r. mcqueen // billy & npc son

destinie tyson // nursing student // phoebe tonkin // billy & npc daughter

chicago fire

tricia boden // aisha dee // wallace & donna daughter

wallace boden

sylvie brett

matt casey

gabriella dawson

christopher hermann

stella kidd

patrick mcholland // hunter parrish // mouch & trudy son

rachel mcholland // anna kendrick // mouch & trudy daughter

randall ‘mouch’ mcholland

peter mills

kelly severide

leslie shay

allison shay-severide // zoe levin // kelly & leslie daughter

brian ‘otis’ zvonecek

chicago med

anna charles

daniel charles

will halstead

maggie lockwood

connor rhodes

chicago pd

kevin atwater

antonio dawson

eva dawson

hannah halstead // willa holland // jay & erin daughter

jay halstead

erin lindsay

trudy platt

adam ruzek

savannah ruzek // dianna agron // adam & kim daughter

emmaline voight // shay mitchell // adopted by hank

Hank voight

Madeline voight // police officer // charisma carpenter // hank & trudy daughter

Criminal minds

Penelope garcia

Aaron hotchner

Alexandra hotchner // ssa bau // alona tal // aaron & haley daughter

Jennifer jareau

Emily prentiss

Derek morgan

Brynnlee reid-morgan // aisha dee // derek & spencer daughter

David rossi

Rylee rossi // hayden panettiere // david & erin daughter

dallas

Ann ewing

Bobby ewing

Christopher ewing

John ross ewing

Olivia ewing // britt robertson // bobby & ann daughter

Bryan jones // history professor // colin donnell

fire country

Bode Donovan

Sharon Leone

Vince Leone

Gabriella Perez

Manny Perez

Grey’s anatomy

Teddy altman

Jackson avery

Miranda bailey

Tuck bailey-jones

Stephanie edwards

Lexie grey

Meredith grey

Zola grey-shepherd

Alex karev

Chloe montgomery-shepherd // er nurse // madelaine petsch

Arizona robbins

Mark sloan

Sofia sloan-torres

Callie torres

house

Robert chase

Lisa cuddy

Gregory house

Veronica house // hailee steinfeld // greg & lisa daughter

ncis

Anthony dinozzo jr.

Tobias fornell

Hannah gibbs // haley ramm // jethro & jenny daughter

Leroy jethro gibbs

Timothy mcgee

Jenny shepard

Private practice

Cooper freedman

Addison montgomery

Jasmine montgomery-reilly // dove cameron // addison & jake daughter 

Jake reilly

Station 19

Travis montgomery

Theo ruiz

Ben warren

Zoey warren // college student // amber riley // ben & miranda daughter

supernatural

Annabelle buckley-moore // hunter // josephine langsford // evan buckley & jess daughter

Castiel

Crowley

Bobby singer

Rufus turner

Dean winchester

Johanna winchester // danielle campbell // dean & castiel daughter

John winchester

Sam winchester

[duckprintspress]

Happy International Transgender Day of Visibility! Meet 8 Trans Authors We Work With!

Today, March 31st, 2023, is International Transgender Day of Visibility! To celebrate, we’re spotlighting eight trans authors who work with Duck Prints Press. The individuals included in this post either indicated in their biographies that they were trans, or they volunteered to be included. We’re delighted to be able to share their work with you. 😀 We work with other trans authors who chose not to be included in this post, and we support them too! It’s scary times to be out in a lot of countries, we get it, and protecting the anonymity and privacy of the people who work with us is one of our top priorities. To be visible on this day, in the current international climate, is an act of bravery, and we salute everyone choosing to publicly celebrate their identity today, and we respect everyone choosing not to. <3

Adrian Harley

Works:

Editor on He Bears the Cape of Stars and She Wears the Midnight Crown

“Some Sparks That Are Like Wit,” in the anthology And Seek (Not) to Alter Me (has a trans male main character!)

“So a demon walks into a party…,” in the anthology She Wears the Midnight Crown (has a main character for whom gender is complicated)

Adrian Harley is an almost-lifelong North Carolinian and a fantasy fiction aficionado who didn’t start delving deep into fandom until adulthood. They are an editor of research by day and an aspiring novelist, also by day. They go to bed early. They have short stories forthcoming in OFIC Magazine and future Duck Prints Press anthologies. They live with their husband and a perfectly reasonable number of cats.

Link: Twitter

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Stephen G. Krueger

Works:

“On Not Going to Parties,” in the anthology He Bears the Cape of Stars (includes a trans male character, an agender character, and a non-binary character!)

Stephen G. Krueger (he/him/his), fandom name WithBroomBefore, is queer, trans, and aroace; he is an academic librarian in the northeast United States. His other writing includes the book Supporting Trans People in Libraries, a handful of professional chapters and articles, and The Trans Advice Column (a co-authored blog that is exactly what it sounds like). Stephen holds a B.A. in English from Warren Wilson College and an M.S. in Library Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; he is currently making leisurely progress towards an M.A. in Arctic and Northern Studies from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He knits and sells hats, some with pride flag colors on them, and enjoys watching figure skating while his three cats take turns claiming lap space.

Links: Archive of Our Own | Etsy | Personal Website

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Puck Malamud

Works:

“Confluence,” in the anthology Add Magic to Taste

A Shield For the People (has a trans male main character!)

Puck Malamud (pronouns: ve/ver/vis/verself or they/them/theirs/themself) is a librarian, writer, and poet who has lived in a variety of large East Coast US cities since immigrating from Ukraine in the 1990s. Ve is co-author of a chapter on being L.G.B.T.Q. in the library profession, and author and co-author of multiple fanfics in various fandoms, though primarily The Untamed and Mo Dao Zu Shi. When not desperately trying to keep up with vis Libby holds, Puck can be found practicing dance, playing TTRPGs and board games, hanging out in various Slacks and Discords, and shitposting on Tumblr.

Links: Tumblr

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Alec J. Marsh

Works:

Editor on our upcoming anthologies Aim For The Heart and Aether Beyond the Binary

“To relish a love song, like a robin redbreast,” in the anthology She Wears the Midnight Crown

Aether Beyond the Binary author contributor (forthcoming)

A Mutual Interest

To Drive the Hundred Miles (has a trans male main character!)

Heart’s Scaffold

Study Hall

Alec lives in the Pacific Northwest, where they write romantic adult fantasy and self-indulgent fanfiction. They make candles inspired by their favorite characters.

Links: Etsy | Instagram | Twitter

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Catherine E. Green

Works:

Editor on our upcoming anthologies Aim For The Heart and Aether Beyond the Binary

Aim For The Heart author contributor (forthcoming)

Aether Beyond the Binary author contributor (forthcoming)

Of Loops and Weaves (trans female main character, this is Patreon/ko-fi exclusive)

Catherine E. Green (pronouns: xe/xem/xyr or they/them/their) is an agender person, one who’s had an on-again, off-again love affair with writing. Xe began writing when xe was a wee thing, when xyr other major pastimes were playing xyr mother’s NES and roughhousing with the boys next door. It’s only in the past few years that they have begun writing consistently and publishing their writing, fanfiction and original writing alike, leading to their first published short story titled “Of Loops and Weaves.”

Outside of writing, xe is a collector of books and sleep debt and an avid admirer of the cosmos. Playing video games, reading a variety of fiction genres (primarily fantasy, queer romance, and manga and graphic novels of all kinds), and working on wrangling their own personal data archiving projects occupy most of their free time. Xe has also started meeting up with a local fiber arts group and is excited to be crocheting xyr first scarf.

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S. J. Ralston

Works:

Aether Beyond the Binary author contributor (forthcoming)

S. J. grew up in the distinctly weird town of Athens, GA, bounced around in the American southwest for a while, and landed in Houston, TX, where they currently work as a Mars Research Scientist. They’ve been writing original works and fanfiction since they could hold a pencil semi-correctly, and continue to write both whenever possible (as well as still holding a pencil only semi-correctly). They’re currently working on developing a portfolio of published original works. In their clearly copious spare time, S. J. enjoys hiking, tabletop RPGs, jigsaw puzzles, and enthusiastically crappy sci-fi.

Links: Personal Website

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N. C. Farrell

Works:

“Eldest Daughter Seeks Her Wife,” in the anthology She Wears the Midnight Crown 

N. C. Farrell (they/he) grew up in California’s Silicon Valley, where they spent long days hiking the coastal mountains, reading an impressive number of books about dragons (and cats, and spaceships, and magic, etc.), and creating stories with their friends. He moved to Massachusetts for college, where he studied psychology while reading more books (some of which were even for classes!), participating in LARPs, and ensuring that the SF/F club’s student-run convention had a solid schedule. Since graduating, N. C. Farrell has worked in various education-related roles. They currently spend much of their free time reading (more translated webnovels than paper books right now), writing (a lot of fanfic), practicing aikido, playing TTRPGs, and being supervised by a small shadow in the shape of a cat.

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Alex Ransom

Works:

“Flowers Bloom Even Then,” in the anthology Add Magic to Taste (has a non-binary main character!)

“A Midwinter Night’s Dream,” in the anthology He Bears the Cape of Stars

Alex Ransom is a longtime fan writer and translator recently expanding into original fiction. Her favorite trope, as both reader and writer, is “Earn Your Happy Ending,” in which characters fight through perhaps inordinate amounts of difficulty to come out happier and more content on the other side. She is especially interested in the intersection between social circumstances, personal history, and the formation and maintenance of identity. Her favorite genres are space opera, fantasy, queer romance, and poetry.

As a child, Alex thought everything was better if it was more complicated and that the best answer to a yes or no question was usually “both”. Consequently, today she is bi/pansexual, trans/nonbinary, has worked a variety of jobs, and has three degrees in completely unrelated fields. When she isn’t writing or doomscrolling on the internet, she likes to travel, hike, and build marginally functional furniture. She lives outside Boston, Massachusetts, with her spouse and adult daughter.

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Thanks for joining us in celebrating gender diversity and supporting trans creators on Trans Day of Visibility!

Who we are: Duck Prints Press LLC is an independent publisher based in New York State. Our founding vision is to help fanfiction authors navigate the complex process of bringing their original works from first draft to print, culminating in publishing their work under our imprint. We are particularly dedicated to working with queer authors and publishing stories featuring characters from across the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. Love what we do? Want to make sure you don’t miss the announcement for future giveaways? Sign up for our monthly newsletter and get previews, behind-the-scenes information, coupons, and more!

Want to support the Press, read about us behind-the-scenes, learn about what’s coming down the pipeline, get exclusive teasers, and claim free stories? Back us on Patreon or ko-fi monthly!

[girljeremystrong]

25 favorite books of mine for @kerrycastellabate ❤️ 

1.       WE RIDE UPON STICKS by quan barry

about a girl’s high school field hockey team from salem, massachussetts which in 1989 is on a mega winning streak. might it be because the team members have pledged themselves to the dark forces in order to get to state? it’s so fun and the characters are all incredible.

2.       WE BEGIN AT THE END by chris whitaker

the plot isn’t easy to summarize but this is a thriller and a very very good one at that. it’s goto ne of the best characters ever: duchess “the outlaw”. there’s a murder and a murderer on the loose and old friends and sweet siblings and it’s truly a great book.

3.       THE INDEX OF SELF DESTRUCTIVE ACTS by christopher beha

this as close to succession as a book can get. Sam is a sport statician, he gets involved with a rich new york city family. this book is amazing, so much happens and all the characters are great.

4.       THE GIRL WITH THE LOUDING VOICE by abi daré

adunni is a fourteen-year-old nigerian girl who knows what she wants: an education. she’s determined to find her voice. incredible story and so sweet and uplifting and beautiful. i have gifted this book time and time again. i love it.

5.       THE ART OF FIELDING by chad harbach

about henry who gets recruited by mike to play baseball at college and they become very good pals while henry becomes better and better and mike understands his life less and less. great team antics great plot great characters not too much baseball.

6.       DOMINICANA by angie cruz

ana is a fifteen year old girl living in the dominican republic who dreams of moving to america. again this is a very sweet and powerful story. ana is an incredible character that i love so much.

7.       I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS by maya angelou

a wonderful memoir about her childhood in a southern town. this is a classic and i love it. It’s joyful and sad and wonderful.

8.       NOTHING TO SEE HERE by kevin wilson

moving and uproarious novel about a woman who finds meaning in her life when she begins caring for two children with remarkable and disturbing abilities (they spontaneously combust when they get agitated). great and fun and very sweet.

9.       CONJURE WOMEN by afia atakora

a sweeping story that brings the world of the south before and after the civil war vividly to life. spanning eras and generations, it tells of the lives of three unforgettable women. “magnificently written, brilliantly researched, richly imagined.”

10.   A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY by john irving

eleven-year-old owen meany, playing in a Little League baseball game in gravesend, new hampshire, hits a foul ball and kills his best friend's mother. owen doesn't believe in accidents. wonderful story about friendship and destiny. i love this book.

11.   HOMEGOING by yaa gyasi

this book follows generation after generation of descendants of two half sisters born in different villages in 18th century ghana. they go on to having very different fates and so do their children and their children's children. it’s a modern classic! it’s perfect.

12.   BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by evelyn waugh

tells the story of charles ryder's infatuation with the marchmains and the rapidly-disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. enchanted first by sebastian, then by his doomed catholic family. it’s wonderful and wistful and beautifully written.

13.   BELOVED by toni morrison

sethe was born a slave and escaped, but eighteen years later she is still not free. she has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad, yet she is still held captive by memories of sweet home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. it’s perfect it won every big award because it’s incredible.

14.   ALL THE KING'S MEN by robert penn warren

tells the story of charismatic populist governor willie stark and his political machinations in the depression-era deep south. i don’t know but i love this book. it’s a classic and it’s written so well and the story is compelling and i keep recommending it.

15.   SALVAGE THE BONES by jesmyn ward

hurricane katrina is building over the gulf of mexico, threatening the coastal town of bois sauvage, mississippi, and esch's father is growing concerned. this all takes place across 12 days before, during and after hurricane katrina and it is a truly amazing book. a must read! a modern classic.

16.   EVERYWHERE YOU DON'T BELONG by gabriel bump

claude, a black boy from the south side of chicago whose parents both left when he was a child, so he was raised by his grandmother and her friend paul. love this book, its characters and the way it’s written, and especially its dialogues.

17.   THE PROPHETS by robert jones jr.

bout the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a deep south plantation. isaiah was samuel’s and samuel was isaiah’s. very sad and very maddening, but beautiful.

18.   THE FUNNY THING ABOUT NORMAN FOREMAN by julietta henderson

when 12-year-old norman’s best friend jax dies, he decides the only fitting tribute is to perform at the edinburgh fringe festival as a comedian. his mum sadie will do anything to help him. ooh this is so sweet, it’s adorable and so fun and delightful!

19.   INFINITE COUNTRY by patricia engel

elena and mauro are teenagers when they meet, their blooming love an antidote to the mounting brutality of life in bogotá. once their first daughter is born, and facing grim economic prospects, they set their sights on the united states. beautiful story and very well written.

20.   THE SWEETNESS OF WATER by nathan harris

in the waning days of the civil war, brothers prentiss and landry—freed by the emancipation proclamation—seek refuge on the homestead of george walker and his wife, isabelle. the walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers. so unexpectedy gorgeous.

21.   BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY by quan julie wang

a beautiful memoir about an undocumented childhood. my favorite book of 2022. magnificent, perfect, sweet, sad, joyful. i love it with all myself.

22.   REAL LIFE by brandon taylor

almost everything about wallace is at odds with the midwestern university town. but over the course of a weekend, a series of confrontations with colleagues, and an unexpected encounter with a straight, white classmate, conspire to fracture his defenses. i love this. this author is so good at building up characters.

23.   MILK BLOOD HEAT by dantiel w. monitz

incredible collection of short stories. left me wanting more but at the same time they are perfectly crafted and beautiful.

24.   HOMELAND ELEGIES by ayad akhtar

truly incredible book, one of the best i’ve ever read. part family drama, part social essay, part picaresque adventure — at its heart, it is the story of a father, a son, and the country they both call home.

25.    THE LOVE SONGS OF W.E.B. DU BOIS  by honorée fanonne jeffers

this is the story of ailey and her ancestor’s journey in america through centuries, from the colonial slave trade to our days. we meet ailey when she is a child and watch her grow up, until the moment when, as a college graduate, she embarks on a journey to uncover her family’s past. a wonderful epic story spanning centuries. loved the character of ailey.

[mybeingthere]

Colin Garrity creates useful things from wood, like these pottery tools. 

"I grew up in a small German town that was 20 minutes from the Vitra Design Museum, and 30 minutes from Basel, but my interest in Design was a lot more raw- My friends and I would break into abandoned factories and make sculptures out of the old machinery. It wasn’t until Warren Wilson College in NC that I picked up woodworking. 

I started out building an electric guitar, a fell in love with the trade. After a couple years of building guitars in the school’s woodshop, I tackled furniture, then lighting, and as I became more and more experienced, I became interested in making simpler and simpler things. Much of my motivation in designing objects comes from wanting functional, simple, and beautiful objects. If i find myself using something ugly (like a flyswatter) I find myself thinking – this doesn’t have to be ugly. 

One of my newest designs- which I’ll have at Renegade’s Dec 5-6 show in Chicago is my oak and walnut folding-table. it’s a beautiful and sturdy table, and it also folds flat. So it’s easy to store, move and hide. I try stick to a useful minimalist throughout my work. Almost everything is useful- but they aren’t show pieces. they are beautiful objects that are meant to be used- or held."

[parasociallyyours]

Senior Research Project

Hi everyone! My name is Katherine and I’m a senior at Warren Wilson College currently finishing my bachelors degree in psychology. As someone with experience with a chronic illness, my undergraduate thesis is focused on how connections with media figures, loneliness, and chronic illnesses interact or influence each other. To take this survey, you don’t need to have a chronic illness (mental, physical, or noncommunicable; such as diabetes, cancer, respiratory issues, and heart disease). Likewise, if you have a chronic illness such as those mentioned previously, you don’t need to have a connection with a media figure to take this survey. Don’t have either? You can still take it! If anything I’ve said has intrigued you at all, click this link and give the survey a look :)

Thank you for reading and for your consideration in participating!

Are you not interested but know someone who might be? Send them the link!

URL link: https://forms.gle/aRv4jtSXoBfj1opQA

[ao3feed-danielsousa]

Doesn't Mean They're Lost Forever

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/iXEnM9y

by lizziesromanova

An Au set in a Marvel/Aos/Xmen universe where Y/n discovers that there have been unknown guests living in her house... and she's now determined to make everything okay for them.

Words: 16158, Chapters: 3/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, X-Men - All Media Types

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/F, Gen

Characters: Wanda Maximoff, Pietro Maximoff, Tessa | Sage, Jean Grey, Scott Lang, Scott Summers, Maria Hill, Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Moira MacTaggert, Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr, Raven | Mystique, Logan (X-Men), Ororo Munroe | Bloodstorm, Hank McCoy, Rogue (X-Men), Remy LeBeau, Kurt Wagner, Colossus, Bobby Drake, Jubilee, Kitty Pryde, Alex Summers, Warren Worthington II, Nathaniel Malick, Wade Wilson, Lorna Dane, Toad (X-Men), Pyro, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Thor (Marvel), Bruce Banner, Clint Barton, Vision (Marvel), Sam Wilson (Marvel), James "Rhodey" Rhodes, James "Bucky" Barnes, Hope Van Dyne, Carol Danvers, Peter Quill, Rocket Raccoon, Groot (Marvel), Phil Coulson, Melinda May, Skye | Daisy Johnson, Leo Fitz, Jemma Simmons, Grant Ward, Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie, Bobbi Morse, Lance Hunter, Elena "Yo-Yo" Rodriguez, Jeffrey Mace, Holden Radcliffe, Daniel Sousa, Wong (Marvel), Stephen Strange, Nick Fury

Relationships: Wanda Maximoff/Reader, Pietro Maximoff/Tessa | Sage, Jean Grey/Scott Summers, Maria Hill/Natasha Romanov, Moira MacTaggert/Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr & Charles Xavier

Additional Tags: Protective Wanda Maximoff, Pietro Maximoff Lives, Lesbian Wanda Maximoff, Teen Jean Grey, Jean Grey Lives, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - College/University

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/iXEnM9y

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Hi Frank can you tell be a cool fact about American history from the years 1879 to 1967?

OK here we go. All of this was, to my surprise, really true.

1879: Theodore Roosevelt, who had never held political office, and who was never nominated in a primary election, is elected President. This is an unusual situation, not repeated until George W. Bush in 2000, the last time an incumbent was elected in this way. The Republican Party is in disarray for years afterwards, and it was not until 1920 that this election was finally decided in favor of a Republican.

1883: James Garfield is shot by an assassin and dies in office. Garfield did not actually win the presidency, but he had made the run for it and been close, so everyone considers him to be the Republican candidate. It was a close race, but the Republican candidate carried just about all the New England states.

1885: Grover Cleveland is president. This is not a real thing. No one remembers this event, no one can even recall the name of Cleveland's Vice President, and there was in fact no Vice President elected at this time, as he had died years earlier. Cleveland won the 1884 Presidential election for his own party, but did not run for another term, and thus did not win the nomination.

1887: Benjamin Harrison is assassinated and dies in office. He did not win the 1884 Presidential election, and, because the Republican candidate, James G. Blaine, had died during the campaign and thus the party could not select a replacement candidate, the election went to a head-to-head popular vote between Blaine and Democrat Grover Cleveland. Blaine won by one electoral vote.

1889: Benjamin Harrison is assassinated by the wife of a personal enemy.

1893: Grover Cleveland is "elected" as a third-party candidate, and so is not president. There is, technically, a president who was never president. (He's "President-elect" Cleveland; he was President-elect at the time of his assassination!)

1895: William McKinley is nominated for a third time, at a time when he was not actually an incumbent President.

1897: William McKinley is assassinated by an anarchist in Buffalo. The McKinley Tariff was passed in March 1894, shortly before McKinley's presidential campaign began. He would have been the first US President to die in office if he had lived, so the new President-elect is called Theodore Roosevelt, because his name starts with "T" and the Republican party (as at the time) was very protective of its incumbent President-elects.

1901: Teddy Roosevelt is elected President. This is the first of many elections in which the incumbent Republican is elected, and it is the first of the post-Roosevelt era. The party was still in disarray at this time, and it was not until the Republican candidate in the next election, Herbert Hoover, was elected President in 1928 that there would be no Republican President until Gerald Ford in 1974.

1907: Theodore Roosevelt is re-elected, as is William Taft, who was another one of his cabinet appointees.

1911: William Taft, one of the few members of President Roosevelt's cabinet who did not live to see his own inauguration, is elected President.

1917: Woodrow Wilson is elected President, not by election, but because he is nominated for President in the 1912 convention and many delegates did not attend.

1918: Woodrow Wilson is elected President a second time, after the convention which nominated him was held in the midst of a global flu epidemic.

1919: Warren G. Harding is elected president.

1920: Warren G. Harding is elected President a third time, after the Republicans split their national vote and the Democrats win the electoral college vote.

1921: Warren G. Harding is re-elected, his nomination being won by the convention held in the middle of the Russian Revolution.

1923: Calvin Coolidge is elected President for the first of five times. He is re-elected in 1928, the year of the Wall Street crash, and he is nominated the year after, with his nomination won in a convention held the year after, with the convention held in the midst of a Great Depression. He was nominated in the midst of the depression because that was the year Coolidge was "born," meaning he lived for his entire life, and then died of a heart attack before his term was over. He had a heart attack at age 58 and was elected President at age 62.

(Yes, Coolidge was 58 when the Republicans nominated him, and his heart attack killed him. The Republicans wanted to nominate him as a formality, but he hadn't been in office for any long time and in fact died the very next day. He was not actually elected, since there was no time between the nomination and his death in office to hold a presidential election. The Republican National Committee met with Coolidge's doctor, who said "Coolidge will die if they do not nominate him by noon" and the party nominated him in his place.)

1929: Herbert Hoover is elected in a hard-fought primary. (Hoover's father was an obscure member of a political dynasty who never won anything except the House seat he was representing when he died, and Hoover himself was a businessman and governor with no political experience of any kind.)

1935: Franklin Roosevelt is elected in a hard-fought primary, the only instance so far when a presidential candidate was elected in this way.

[kevindoylejones1]

Ideas for Warren Wilson currency design

We are launching the conversation about a currency with the college by bringing in four colleagues who are among the most experience and successful and creative builders of currencies with a social goal in the world. The two based in the U.S., Michael and Leanne, are willing to come down to the college and talk about it, when things progress that far. Their travel will be covered. I suggest this…

[ruminativerabbi]

The President's Warren-Harding-Moment

Warren G. Harding, the 29th president of the United States, came to the presidency on the heels of a landslide victory over his Democratic opponent, James M. Cox. (He was also the first of our three presidents to move director from the Senate to the White House, the other two being JFK and Barack Obama.) And there truly was a new age dawning as Harding took the oath of office on March 4, 1921. The Great War was over, the Treaty of Versailles in effect for more than a year, our troops all back home. It was the Jazz Age, the Roaring Twenties, les années folles in our nation and across the Atlantic in Europe. The future felt bright, our national potential for growth almost limitless.

And then, just a couple of months after Harding came to office, America experienced a race-based pogrom on a scale that had never been seen before. Called the Tulsa Race Massacre (or, sometimes, the Black Wall Street Massacre), the event featured mobs of white citizens rampaging through the Greenwood district of Tulsa, a Black neighborhood, eventually destroying 35 square blocks of homes and businesses. The precise number of people killed during those days, May 31 and June 1 of 1921, is not known, but the estimates range from 75 to 300. About 10,000 people were left homeless. It was, even by the standards of the day, a shocking event that seized the attention of the nation. To learn more, I recommend Tim Madigan’s book, The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, which I read a decade ago when it first came out.

The riot presented President Harding with a remarkable challenge because he was scheduled just two days later to deliver the commencement address at Lincoln University in Oxford, Pennsylvania, the nation’s first degree-granting Historically Black College. He could surely have given some sort of color-by-number speech about graduating college and moving into the future and been forgiven for his blandness. But he saw an opportunity, a great one, and he took it. He only spoke for ten minutes. But in those ten minutes, he identified himself with his Black listeners (a remarkable thing for a white man in his office to do, and especially for the President who followed Woodrow Wilson, a known racist and segregationist). He wondered aloud how government, lacking a magic wand that could somehow alter attitude and stance, could lead Black Americans forward to a position of equality by working to offer Black Americans a chance to go to school, to become educated, and to enter society on an equal footing with their white co-citizens. And he spoke about Tulsa, calling the riot “an unhappy and distressing spectacle” of the kind that the nation should not and cannot tolerate. And then, in a gesture that will seem ordinary to most today but which at the time was considered astonishing, the white President of the United States shook the hand of every single Black member of the graduating class, which was all of them.

That fall, Harding went south to Birmingham, Alabama, to speak at the celebration of the city’s semicentennial. The Black third of the audience was separated from the white two-thirds by a chain-link fence. The President began his remarks, as everybody expected, by praising the city and commenting on its beauty. But then he reverted to Tulsa and, without mentioning the massacre, addressed its aftermath clearly and precisely. Black Americans fought in the Great War just as patriotically as white citizens, he began by noting. And then he went on to say clearly that Black people should not only not be prevented from voting, but should be encouraged to vote. Educational opportunities should be extended equally to all, he said, and without reference to race. And white Americans should be encouraging their Black neighbors to find their own leaders and to participate in the effort to advance humanity morally and politically. For the time and place, it was a remarkable statement. The white listeners greeted his speech with stony silence. The Black listeners responded with “uproarious applause,” to quote a journalist who was present. There was no question where Harding stood. It was his moment and he neither flinched nor equivocated. He is remembered today as, at best, a mediocre president. But he was a brave man as well. And delivering that speech in the heart of segregationist Alabama was a message as loud and clear as any President could have delivered. In many ways, the Birmingham speech was Warren Harding’s finest hour.

I reminded myself all about these two speeches as a way of preparing to hear President Biden speak Tuesday morning about the surge of anti-Semitism in America. I was especially curious to see if he would offer concrete steps forward or merely condemn prejudice, if he would address the haters in the manner of Warren Harding standing in front of a segregated audience in the heart of the South and daring to insist on equality for Black Americans. Would Biden merely announce that he is opposed to anti-Semitism in the way that people are opposed to bad weather, i.e., without anyone supposing that he could actually do something about it? Or would we hear concrete proposals about how our nation should move forward? I was especially interested in hearing what he would say about our nation’s college campuses. Would he call for the expulsion of students who openly call for the murder of their Jewish classmates? Would he announce that guest-students in our nation who openly espouse genocide directed against Jews (or anyone) be deported? Would he say clearly that college professors, including tenured ones, who espouse hatred of Jews should, at the very least, be fired? That was what I was waiting to hear.

In the end, the President didn’t call for any of the measures mentioned just above in so many words, but, almost despite myself, I was impressed, even moved, by his words. The man is not a great orator, but his words were clearly heartfelt and personal. And what he had to say was beyond resonant with me because he artfully made the single point over and over that I personally find it the most exasperating when our elected officials seem not to understand.

To my relief and slight amazement, the President seemed fully aware that it is not possible for Jewish Americans with any sense of their own history to consider the events of October 7 other than in the context of the Shoah. Yes, I understand that Hamas-governed Gaza is not Nazi Germany. But I am incapable of hearing stories about children being murdered, women being sexually abused and then killed, elderly people dragged from their homes and shipped off to unknown destinations to meet whatever fate awaited them there—I am just not able to hear any of that without being transported back to the dark days of the 1940s. Nor, I think, should anyone be able to be. And then the President tied the two together unambiguously: “Now here we are, not 75 years later, but just seven-and-a-half months later and people are already forgetting, are already forgetting that Hamas unleashed this terror. That it was Hamas that brutalized Israelis. It was Hamas who took and continues to hold hostages. I have not forgotten, nor have you, and we will not forget.”  That is the precise point for Jewish Americans: that to talk about Hamas without reference to murder, rape, and barbarism towards babies is exactly the same as discussing the Nazis without reference to Auschwitz.

And then the President made that point even more clear, stressing that he understood fully that the Israeli response to the Simchat Torah pogrom was rooted in the history of the Jewish people and that those memories are, for better or worse, ineradicable: Too many people [are] denying, downplaying, rationalizing, ignoring the horrors of the Holocaust and October 7th, including Hamas' appalling use of sexual violence to torture and terrorize Jews. It's absolutely despicable and it must stop…Some injustices are so heinous, so horrific, so grievous they cannot be…buried, no matter how hard people try.

I recommend reading the whole speech, which you can do by clicking here. And I recommend comparing it to a document published on the White House’s own website, a fact sheet detailing the Biden-Harris administration’s national strategy to combat anti-Semitism. It’s a remarkable document in its own right, something very worth your time to consider. (To see a copy, click here.) You will find there more than 100 specific steps the administration is taking or wishes to take to fight anti-Jewish prejudice in these United States. Some of them seem a bit odd (will things really change if enough NBA players visit Yad Vashem?), but other initiatives seem solid and potentially very effective. But what struck me, aside from the details, was the larger image here of the President offering not one or two, but dozens upon dozens of initiatives to make Jewish people in our nation feel and be safe and secure.

But that document was from last year, published in May 2023. It still reads well. But this is now, not then. In May of 2023, our nation’s college campuses hadn’t turned into battlegrounds onto which Jewish students barely dare to wander and our nation’s high schools hadn’t become breeding grounds for anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred. We hadn’t yet had the surge in anti-Semitic incidents that the President himself characterized as “ferocious.” So the efforts outlined in last year’s policy paper, for all they were surely well-meaning and even potentially game-changing, need to be revised and revamped in light of the new normal. The President did address the situation on campus. And what he said was spot on (“In America we respect and protect the fundamental right to free speech, to debate and disagree, to protest peacefully and make our voices heard. But there is no place on any campus in America … for antisemitism or hate speech or threats of violence of any kind.”) But I was disappointed that the President didn’t call for the three-pronged approach to the situation on our nation’s campuses I recommended above. And I do believe that things will not change until it becomes clear that calling for more October 7’s, the equivalent of calling for the murder of Jewish children and the rape of Jewish women and the wholesale slaughter of Jewish families, will result in expulsion for students, dismissal for faculty, and deportation for visitors from foreign lands who received visas to come to these shores to study and not to call for the murder of our citizens. That was what I wanted to hear and didn’t.

President Harding’s Birmingham speech was a grand moment for the man and for the nation. But that was in 1921 and it took more than forty years for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to become the law of the land. We can’t wait forty years for focused, effective action on anti-Semitism. Nor should we have to.

[p-isforpoetry]

Read by the poet: "Death Of The Hired Man" by Robert Frost

Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step, She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage To meet him in the doorway with the news And put him on his guard. ‘Silas is back.’ She pushed him outward with her through the door And shut it after her. ‘Be kind,’ she said. She took the market things from Warren’s arms And set them on the porch, then drew him down To sit beside her on the wooden steps.

‘When was I ever anything but kind to him? But I’ll not have the fellow back,’ he said. ‘I told him so last haying, didn’t I? If he left then, I said, that ended it. What good is he? Who else will harbor him At his age for the little he can do? What help he is there’s no depending on. Off he goes always when I need him most. He thinks he ought to earn a little pay, Enough at least to buy tobacco with, So he won’t have to beg and be beholden. “All right,” I say, “I can’t afford to pay Any fixed wages, though I wish I could.” “Someone else can.” “Then someone else will have to.” I shouldn’t mind his bettering himself If that was what it was. You can be certain, When he begins like that, there’s someone at him Trying to coax him off with pocket-money,— In haying time, when any help is scarce. In winter he comes back to us. I’m done.’

‘Sh! not so loud: he’ll hear you,’ Mary said.

‘I want him to: he’ll have to soon or late.’

‘He’s worn out. He’s asleep beside the stove. When I came up from Rowe’s I found him here, Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep, A miserable sight, and frightening, too— You needn’t smile—I didn’t recognize him— I wasn’t looking for him—and he’s changed. Wait till you see.’ ‘Where did you say he’d been?’

‘He didn’t say. I dragged him to the house, And gave him tea and tried to make him smoke. I tried to make him talk about his travels. Nothing would do: he just kept nodding off.’

‘What did he say? Did he say anything?’

‘But little.’ ‘Anything? Mary, confess

He said he’d come to ditch the meadow for me.’

‘Warren!’ ‘But did he? I just want to know.’

‘Of course he did. What would you have him say? Surely you wouldn’t grudge the poor old man Some humble way to save his self-respect. He added, if you really care to know, He meant to clear the upper pasture, too. That sounds like something you have heard before? Warren, I wish you could have heard the way He jumbled everything. I stopped to look Two or three times—he made me feel so queer— To see if he was talking in his sleep. He ran on Harold Wilson—you remember— The boy you had in haying four years since. He’s finished school, and teaching in his college. Silas declares you’ll have to get him back. He says they two will make a team for work: Between them they will lay this farm as smooth! The way he mixed that in with other things. He thinks young Wilson a likely lad, though daft On education—you know how they fought All through July under the blazing sun, Silas up on the cart to build the load, Harold along beside to pitch it on.’

‘Yes, I took care to keep well out of earshot.’

‘Well, those days trouble Silas like a dream. You wouldn’t think they would. How some things linger! Harold’s young college boy’s assurance piqued him. After so many years he still keeps finding Good arguments he sees he might have used. I sympathize. I know just how it feels To think of the right thing to say too late. Harold’s associated in his mind with Latin. He asked me what I thought of Harold’s saying He studied Latin like the violin Because he liked it—that an argument! He said he couldn’t make the boy believe He could find water with a hazel prong— Which showed how much good school had ever done him. He wanted to go over that. But most of all He thinks if he could have another chance To teach him how to build a load of hay—’

‘I know, that’s Silas’ one accomplishment. He bundles every forkful in its place, And tags and numbers it for future reference, So he can find and easily dislodge it In the unloading. Silas does that well. He takes it out in bunches like big birds’ nests. You never see him standing on the hay He’s trying to lift, straining to lift himself.’ …

Full poem

Source: Robert Frost reading his own poems, 1951