Editor’s note: On Wednesday, December 7, in the Paradise Room of the Smith College Conference Center, Ruth Ozeki gave a lecture titled “The Book of Form and Emptiness: Zen and the Art of Actualizing Fiction.” Provost Michael Thurston introduced the speaker, and his remarks follow here, as does Ruth Ozeki’s sabbatical report, . . .
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(Amherst, MA, 03/04/2022) If there is ink for this hour if there is something to say to write that would send the tanks the convoys and transports into reverse on the roads they have rutted send them back to the borders they crossed send them back, and the hours too that have . . .
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Photo by Gino Mifsud Peter Bogdanovich passed away this week of natural causes. He was one of the great American directors, of course. His three picture run of The Last Picture Show, What’s Up Doc, and Paper Moon has seldom been equalled, and although his work after that (without his brilliant collaborator . . .
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Editor’s Note: On December 3, 2021, at the Old Chapel on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, friends, colleagues, and community members met to celebrate the work of UMass Professor of English and MR Contributing Editor Martín Espada, to recognize his singular achievements—during his long career but also in a . . .
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An introduction to David Lenson’s lecture at the Commonwealth Honors College, University of Massachusetts Amherst, on February 13, 2013. Here are only a very few representative samples of the many, many evaluations made by students with regard to David Lenson and his teaching: One of the most incredible professors that I have ever had.He . . .
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(Photo: David Lenson, from the 1963 Nutley High School yearbook) When I remember David Lenson it is his kind eyes and his wicked grin, full of mischief, as though he had just eaten a bird and was waiting, even hoping, for someone to notice. The first time I met him was in . . .
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(Photo: David Lenson at three. Courtesy of Barry Lenson.) David R. Lenson—comp lit professor at UMass Amherst and one of the best teachers I have had—has passed away. He had been sick a long time, victim of a serious stroke. I took a course called “The Double in Literature” with David in . . .
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(David Lenson at his sixtieth birthday party, with Bo Henderson. Tobey Photo.) When I first heard of David, I was a graduate student in the Department of Comparative Literature at UMass Amherst in 2000. Every graduate student spoke highly of him then, as they do now and, I am sure, will continue . . .
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(Photo: David Lenson, courtesy of Pamela Glaven) A little over a week ago, David Lenson died at home, in his Mill Hollow apartment in Amherst. A poet, essayist, musician, and legendary professor, he was seventy-five years old. Brother Barry remembers David as a Victory Baby, born in 1945; the boys grew up . . .
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Photo: Photograph of Robert Pruitt, Cedric Angeles Gwendolyn B. Bennett To a Dark Girl I love you for your brownnessAnd the rounded darkness of your breastI love you for the breaking sadness in your voiceAnd shadows where your wayward eye-lids rest.Something of old forgotten queensLurks in the lithe abandon of your walkAnd something . . .
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