Phillip Booth

The late Philip Booth of Castine had his own way with free verse, creating his music from the repetition of words and their placement on the page. Today’s poem, about the realities of old age, provides a striking example.

Old

by Phillip Booth

Old, the old know cause to be bitter:

they’ve seen

their children (as if they could tell)

insist they are growing deaf:

they’ve found

old friends invent new friends

to prove the old don’t matter:

they have hardened

themselves to let memory rust out;

with only themselves to hold on to,

they have grown

beyond any surprise;

to get their way

they have aged again

to be children:

beyond control, they have gained

control

of every last life save their own.

They know it can get no better.

Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 1990 by Philip Booth. Reprinted from Selves, Penguin Publishing, 1990, by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to David Turner, Special Assistant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at poetlaureate@mainewriters.org or 207-228-8263.

Mekeel McBride lives in Kittery and teaches in the MFA program at the University of New Hampshire. In her poem she shows us what we have missed in the winter trees we observe every day.

Where Inspiration Has Learned a Thing or Two

By Mekeel McBride

From the trees because they are the true intuitives.

Palm readers of sunlight and storm, calm interpreters

for any kind of wind, doing most of the detective work

on shooting stars and aurora borealis. Their easy come,

easy go romances with migrating birds scarcely bear

recording and not even the quick cinema jump cuts

from summer to snow bother them. Even if there is snow,

temperature in the minus numbers, something continues

to live, invisible, at the core. Looking at the trees, you might

see in the bare branches only the bones of Babayaga’s hand

or the possibility of kindling for your wood stove, owl haven,

or a kind of living elegy blessed on the highest branch

by one thin crow. Of course you could be wrong. What

inspiration looks like is never really what it is.

Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2006 by Mekeel McBride. Reprinted from Dog Star Delicatessen, Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2006, by permission of Mekeel McBride. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to David Turner, Special Assistant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at poetlaureate@mainewriters.org or 207-228-8263.

Margaret Chase Smith

by Jim Melcher

Margaret Chase Smith, who served Maine in Congress for 32 years, is still one of the most iconic figures in Maine political history over 15 years after her death in 1995. She remains a significant figure in American national political history as well. What can we still learn from “The Red Rose of Skowhegan”’s experience in politics almost three decades after she left the Senate in 1973? As a scholar of American politics, I tried my hand at this question at a conference titled “The Politics of Conscience: Margaret Chase Smith and Today’s Political Climate” hosted by the Maine Humanities Council at G.W.-Hinckley (formerly Good Will-Hinckley) this past September. (The podcast available here on the MHC website is from a later presentation on this topic I made in Professor Amy Fried’s class on Women and Politics at the University of Maine). I argued that not only are there ways in which we can learn from Margaret Chase Smith’s experience still holding valid today, but that there are other ways in which her experience offers a contrast to the way American politics works now.

What’s often mentioned about Smith is her courage and her “firsts” as a woman in politics. Her notable stand against Senator Joseph McCarthy in her first “Declaration of Conscience” speech and being the first woman to receive votes for a major party nomination for President (at the 1964 Republican convention) are among the most familiar examples.  But these events also point to a legacy somewhat more difficult to observe: a political career that proved that principled partisanship and civility can go together effectively. She was able to combine a career in which she was both a nationally noted spokeswoman for her party and a senator able to both work and enjoy civil relationships with political leaders from across the aisle. Her 1970 “Second Declaration of Conscience” speech, reacting largely to uncivil politics and behavior on college campuses, effectively made the point that civility in politics is not just something to be asked of political leaders, but of the public as well. Finally, an examination of Smith’s 1964 presidential campaign strategy and her suspicion of the role campaign contributions (and disdain for raising them) shows that even where the approaches she took might not work as well in today’s political world, they offer a contrast that shines light on how American elections work today. Even as much has changed in American politics since she first was elected to Congress in 1940, Smith continues to stand as an illuminating example of the possibilities of principle.

Jim Melcher is Associate Professor, Political Science, University of Maine at Farmington

Sound familiar? But it’s not today’s news from Afghanistan. It’s a tale first told some 3,000 years ago by the Greeks. On March 9-10, 2012, at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, the Maine Humanities Council returns to this ancient yet only too fresh story for its 15^th annual Winter Weekend, devoted to Homer’s The Iliad in the Robert Fagles translation.

The weekend features scholarly yet accessible lectures—led off by Mainer Caroline Alexander, author of the bestselling The War That Killed Achilles—small-group discussions, a reception, and a Mediterranean feast.

This interdisciplinary program will especially appeal to students and teachers of epic poetry, mythology, world civilizations, and international relations. (CEUs are available.) Speakers will examine The Iliad not just as a literary classic but for what Homer has to tell us about war and peace, revenge and forgiveness, violence and its psychological impact.  We will highlight, for example, how Homer has been used with remarkable success in hospital reading groups with Vietnam and Iraqi War veterans.

There are still a limited number of places available – an excellent holiday gift for the thoughtful readers on your list! The $225 registration fee includes tuition, a copy of the text (which is also available on audiotape), three meals, the wine and cheese reception, and background readings. Register now!

Liam Riordan

The MHC is pleased to announce that Dr. Liam Riordan, early Americanist scholar, MHC Board Member, and Associate Professor of History at the University of Maine, Orono, will be doing archival research and teaching at the University of Glasgow in spring 2012 as a Fulbright Scholar. His honours level undergraduate course will focus on the early American republic, and he will be pursuing two main research projects. The first is to locate material about the Loyalist Elizabeth Lichtenstein Johnston, who lived in Scotland with her family in the mid-1780s before moving on to Jamaica and then Nova Scotia. Second, he is starting a new research project about outmigration from Glasgow throughout the Atlantic World, and especially to Virginia, the British West Indies, and the Canadian Maritimes, from 1760 to 1820. He will be joined in Glasgow by his wife Susan Thibedeau (on leave from the English Department at Bangor High School) and their sons Cormac and Declan.

Liam has many publications to his credit, including the forthcoming collection The Loyal Atlantic: Remaking the British Atlantic in the Revolutionary Era and Many Identities, One Nation: The Revolution and Its Legacy in the Mid-Atlantic.

Celebrated Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer signs Vecka nr.II, a reflection of his poem "Galleriet," an artist book by multi-award Iraqi-Swedish Modhir Ahmed, By Tokistar (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons

Each year, I eagerly await the Nobel Laureate in Literature. Being an aficionado of things Swedish, including the language, I always listen to the first announcement made by Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, and watch the reaction of the largely-Swedish crowd of reporters. Like most other literary types, I have my own list of who should win and who should have won, and express pleasure or bemusement or curiosity based on that. This year, however, when Englund made his announcement of Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer as the 2011 Nobel Laureate in Literature, my cheer rivaled those of the reporters.

That the MHC is celebrating a year of poetry makes that a poet has won this prestigious award all the more relevant to us. And the choice is especially fitting for the Nobel Committee: Tranströmer is a leader among Scandinavian poets, and the national poet of Sweden, celebrated in a way that few American poets are in this country, at least in modern days (think Whitman during his time). Most of all, his work is exceptionally powerful and beautiful, showing what poetry can accomplish with a small number of words focused on images of everyday life. Take National Insecurity as an example.

Like most poets, Tranströmer has led a career along with poetry. He graduated in Psychology from Stockholm University and has for much of his life worked with disabled people, drug addicts, and juvenile offenders. In 1990, he suffered a stroke that eliminated use of one hand as well as much of his speech. This was a double-blow; Tranströmer is an accomplished pianist as well.

It is anticipated that Tranströmer will accept the Nobel Prize in person through a performance on the piano. This makes the December ceremony one that I’ll be especially eager to watch and celebrate.

—Diane Magras

My love for Robinson’s writing began with her first novel, Housekeeping, one of the few books I have read multiple times; with every novel, her prose becomes more spare yet richer, the story more intimate, the action more subtle and nuanced. Her central characters are society’s outcasts, those who live on the margin. The theme of abandonment is always present. She creates suspense in the peeling of the layers of feeling and intention beneath the character’s actions and spoken words, and in Gilead, in the microscopic observation and description of the daily routines of three who have ended up together in the family home steeped in memories and history, good and bad. After having disappeared for 20 years, Jack returns, an alcoholic filled with shame, regret, mistrust, and fear.  He is his father’s most beloved son and yet resists or fumbles at his father’s attempts at connection and understanding.  Little by little, we learn pieces of Jack’s story and as a backdrop to that, we learn Glory’s.  Both have failed at love and work, but while Glory has always been the naïve and dutiful one, Jack has, since birth, been the incorrigibly wayward and disobedient one.  Despite this, Robinson makes us care about him and root for him; she keeps us on the edge of the unknown as we follow his every move and his every conversation with sister, father, intended mentor, waiting to see if the self-loathing, the inability to make good choices will miraculously be transformed through the love—albeit complicated and not untouched by anger, regret and Christian duty—of his father and sister.  Meanwhile, readers are drawn in by the mesmerizing prose that probes the quiet drama and tangled web of family intimacies that Robinson portrays, offering us cautious hope.

Recommended by Denise Pendleton

View from Strip Road, Fort Kent: Maine's northern border is a landscape of rolling hills, fields, and lots of sky. Credit: Erik Jorgensen

by Kathryn Olmstead

What do borders mean? It is a provocative question that captured the imaginations of participants in two discussions sponsored by the Maine Humanities Council Sept. 16 and 17. Held in the border towns of Houlton and Frenchville, the discussions brought together residents of varied ages and walks of life from both Maine and Canada to examine and expand their views of a border’s significance.

Scott See, University of Maine Libra Professor of History, invited listeners to consider borders in geographical space, in the history of nations and empires, in human interaction and in the imagination. Distinguishing the border from the borderlands on either side, he illustrated his talk with a series of maps showing the historical evolution of today’s 5,500-mile border between the United States and Canada – the world’s longest international boundary.

See, who specializes in Canadian-American history with a particular interest in its social aspects, suggested a commonality among all people who live in the space along borders, even though it is uncertain where a borderland ends as one moves away from the boundaries between countries.

Following Dr. See’s presentation, participants connected ideas from the lecture and from their own experiences to the themes of three poems: “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost, “They’ll Say She Must Be from Another Country” by Imtiaz Dharker, and “What Will Stand,” a song written by Erica Quin-Easter of Caribou with lyrics by poets Wendy Burk and Eric Magrane. Discussions in both communities ranged from the tangible to the intangible as people found different answers to the question “What do borders mean?”

In Houlton, 20 people formed concentric circles at Cary Library to talk about how language, dress, customs and value systems can become “walls.” They examined the concept of “country” and its relationship to personal identity.

Canadians will always be “over-homers” and some people will always be “from away” until the day they die and the obituary reports where they were from . . . originally. Immigrant populations begin to view themselves as “locals” as newer immigrants move in and become “the outsiders.”

Houlton residents with family members on both sides of the border said they see less of the relatives who refuse to obtain passports, and academics said the post 9/11 border has meant reduced attendance at international conferences.

The circle of 25 participants at the St. John Valley Technology Center in Frenchville was enriched by the presence of the Madawaska port director for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection.

“I am here to listen,” said Jaime Gray, describing his goal of fostering a closer relationship between his CBP officers and the community. A native of Pittsfield, Gray spent a year in Jackman, four years on the southern border of California and six years in Nassau, Bahamas, before returning to Maine in August 2011. “I am definitely glad I went,” he said after the discussion, noting that it helped him understand the concerns of the community.

Lise Pelletier, director of the Acadian Archives at the University of Maine at Fort Kent, immediately invited Gray to participate in planning the 2014 Acadian Congress, expected to draw thousands of Francophones from around the world to the St. John Valley. She said her goal is to do away with the border altogether.

Pre- and post-9/11 experiences helped participants define the changing significance of the border in their lives, and language was a common theme in the discussion. People observed how living on a border influences daily life and shapes both personal and cultural identity.

Long-time residents remember the days of easy crossings on the river and the roads, and, like their counterparts in Houlton, they observed that the shared frustration from a tighter border unites them with people on the other side.

(Kathryn Olmstead, MHC scholar, is a former University of Maine associate dean and associate professor of journalism who lives in Aroostook County)

In this post, we’ll present programs that look outward, towards the rest of the world, and in October focus on programs and activities that have encouraged us to reflect upon ourselves as Americans.

The Council’s immediate response to 9/11 was our quickly organized statewide reading and discussion program Let Freedom Ring! On October 11, 2001, nearly 1,000 Mainers came together in 63 libraries to share thoughts on W.H. Auden’s ”September 1, 1939” and Franklin Roosevelt’s speech, “The Four Freedoms”, and to reflect on the events of September 11. As one participant wrote afterwards, “There was freedom and respect in this circle – it models what we wish for in the larger world.”

Since that time, the Council has worked to broaden its own view and to offer that opportunity to all Mainers through our programs and grants. Examples include conferences for teachers and the general public on India and Pakistan, immigration, Africa, Cuba and Latin America, Islam and the Arab World and Far East Asia. Several of these – Islam and the Arab World and Far East Asia – for example, have been held repeatedly, in more than one site. The number of participants at these events indicates a clear interest, if not hunger, for more knowledge and new perspectives.

In 2008, the Council responded to the emerging debates surrounding the societal cost of increased national security. Its free public symposia on Fear, Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law held in both Bangor and Portland, looked at this contentious issue from multiple perspectives, from those of librarians and civil libertarians, to military officers, historians, and prosecutors. The program provided an in-depth look at a complex issue.

The Council’s free library reading and discussion program, Let’s Talk About It, has also expanded its offerings to include series such as Opening Windows: Women’s Stories from Different Cultures, An Introduction to the Arab World, Readings in Caribbean Literature, 20^th Japanese Fiction, and Across Cultures and Continents: Literature of the Southeast Asian Experience. Again, interest in these and other series that increase knowledge and encourage reflection about the world beyond our own country has been high, and libraries use these series repeatedly, statewide.

And we haven’t left out young Mainers. Our Born to Read’s initiative, Many Eyes, Many Voices, has offered early childhood educators trainings, curricula and high quality children’s books so that they are prepared to stimulate meaningful conversations about differences with young children. The trainings also sensitize early childhood educators to the “hidden” messages in books, and help them become better at interpreting and explaining them. In addition we created two books to encourage understanding of some of Maine’s newest immigrants. These books, A Somalia Album and A Somali Alphabet both introduce readers young and old to this intriguing culture that is increasingly becoming a part of our culture in Maine with the influx of immigrants from this part of the world.

The Council also funded many projects that address these issues through our grants program. In the past several years we have helped to fund:

• The Camden Conference, which has addressed topics such as East Asia and Afghanistan, Pakistan and India
• A program at the Long Creek Youth Center for incarcerated African youths to reconnect them to their family’s traditions
• An exhibit in Augusta, The Dignity of Difference: First Mainers and New Mainers, that explores the continuum of change in Maine from early Native Americans through new immigrant cultures
• A traditional Latin American Mother’s Day (El Dia de las Madres) celebration for Milbridge’s diverse population

All of these programs have helped us better understand our world and the cultures that enrich our lives.

A post to come will be about programs we have initiated to encourage us all to reflect more deeply about ourselves as Americans, and to think about what it means to be an American.

The granddaughter of a sea captain, Chase was probably only too familiar with the saga she traced in Silas Crockett: four generations of decline of a proud, prosperous and ambitious seafaring family against the backdrop of one hundred years of decline of a once bustling ship building and globally connected port town on the coast of Maine.  Although Chase’s family may have retained a professional status and attendant financial security, there were many other members of the community with similar family histories who were not so fortunate.

Chase stated that she believed Silas Crockett was her most valuable contribution to the social history of Maine, but it offers rewards on several counts.  First, it is an early version of what I have come to call “the Maine story”: a story of decline.  But because it takes us through the process of that decline, it helps us understand the history behind, for example, both the magnificent architecture and the rotting piers we see in so many coastal towns.  Then the book is filled with wonderful if sometimes somewhat wooden characters who demonstrate the kind of traits we still associate with Maine people: hard working, strong, tenacious, loyal, accepting. The book is also an appreciation of the beauty and simple pleasures of life on the Maine coast: the sea, the sky, the meadows and fields, bright flower gardens, neat rows of preserved vegetables and fruits from abundant gardens.  These are what attracted the first “summer people”, and they still do.  Although in the book the great white Crockett house is not sold until the Depression, many such houses had been sold earlier, and, as we know, many are still being sold. And that is another pleasure of Silas Crockett: its relevance to what we see around us today.

Finally, I must say a word about the women.  Although ostensibly about men, the novel is actually powered by strong women who are both more resilient and more discerning than the husbands and sons (or employers) they try to nurture and support.  It’s not exactly a feminist view of gender roles, but certainly a recognition that, particularly in difficult times, it’s often the women who keep life going.

Happy reading!

Recommendation by Victoria Bonebakker