When I proposed a piece on the Bennington Museum’s current main exhibit, “Green Mountain Magic,” to the Berkshire Edge (same folks), they were happy to oblige.
I’ve now been writing for the (online) Edge and its (print) magazine for seven good years. Old friend David Scribner edits the former; Marcie Setlow, his wife, publishes the latter. Leslie Noyes, who has designed my three self-published books, two of them in multiple editions, also designs the magazine. I have been fortunate to have three such congenial and creative collaborators!
Just published: A Guide to the Battle of Bennington and the Battle Monument, 2nd ed., nine years after my first attempt, which was successful enough in the marketplace to sell out. The front cover is (almost) the same, and the back cover now bears a blurb from Peter Gilbert, retired Director of Vermont Humanities.
The first edition was 56 pages; this one is 80. Some of the new material comes in the form of photographs that I’ve been taking over the past 9 years, and re-enactment photos provided by Peter Schaaphok of the Friends of the Bennington Battlefield, and a dramatic drone shot of a maintenance technician rappelling down the exterior of the Monument, provided by Vermont’s Division of Historic Preservation. There are new works of art, too, including a painting of the Battle by Jacob Lawrence, and Grandma Moses’s’ “Black Horses,” which she related to the death of one of her ancestors’ black horses at the Battle. Also new: sections on Molly Stark, on women at the Battle, on Black Patriots at the Battle, on rum, the official drink (per General Stark) of the Battle.
Once again I have had the benefit of the superb skills of graphic designer Leslie Noyes of Bennington. I don’t sell on Amazon, only in Vermont bookstores and shops. If you’re at a distance, you can order online from the Bennington Bookshop or Manchester’s Northshire Bookstore.
I gave my “Black Presence” talk in Shoreham, Vt., earlier in the month and will be doing it again in Sheffield, Mass., at the end of the month (the 26th, 6:30 pm) in the old Congregational church in the center of town. That will make the second church I have spoken in this month, as I gave a talk on Robert Frost and his Arlington connections to the Arlington Common on the 7th in the now deconsecrated mid-century Catholic Church on Main Street. That required dipping back in to Sarah Cleghorn’s Threescore, from which I extracted some moving quotations about the effect of spoken word poetry on her, especially Frost’s by Dorothy Canfield Fisher and modern poetry by her friend Halley Phillips Gilchrist, the force behind the Southern Vermont Poetry Society, which first brought Frost to the area. I enjoy these bursts of research and speaking, and a couple of local historians (Bill Budde and Shawn Harrington) dug up some good things for me. 35 or so people showed up and I was happy to take requests in the second part of the program.
Of course, Adam Plunkett has also spoken, in his new biography of Robert Frost. He persuasively explodes Frost’s oft-told tale about staying up all night at the Stone House in summer 1922 to write “New Hampshire,” then coming up with “Stopping by Woods” in the morning. Plunkett ascribes this piece of deception on Frost’s part in terms of his rivalry with T.S. Eliot and the clamor over “The Wasteland” (1922). I, with many others, have fallen for Frost’s and can’t call it (my 3rd edition) back now. It will have to wait for the 4th…
Meanwhile, we are almost all set for the 250th activities around the commemoration of the taking of Ticonderoga by Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys in May 1775. I have been quite occupied with those activities, especially in regard to the educational tour for 4th grade students. It’s another CVNHP-funded project, quite ambitious, too.
I’ve been a devoted reader of the Vermont Almanac since the first one appeared five years ago, and I am pleased as punch to be among the contributors to this year’s volume. Unlike conventional almanacs, which tell you what’s coming in the way of weather, eclipses of the sun and moon, etc., the Vermont Almanac takes a backward look at what’s been happening in this state in the past 12 months from the perspective of those who work with or simply live on the land. My piece tells the story of how Robert Frost came to write a Christmas poem called “To a Young Wretch,” about the theft of one of the poet’s young spruce trees in 1936. One of the two boys who rustled the tree (they were both nabbed by the South Shaftsbury constable as they dragged it home) is now 93 years old. I visited him at his assisted living facility in Bennington not long ago and will drop off a copy of the Almanac for him later today. The stanza that concludes the poem is one of Frost’s best:
And though in tinsel chain and popcorn rope My tree, a captive in your window bay, Has lost its footing on my mountain slope And lost the stars of heaven, may, oh, may The symbol star it lifts against your ceiling Help me accept its fate with Christmas feeling.
I needed a new headshot for the contributors page, and I wanted a face to match the tone of the story:
I’ve been swinging from talk to talk lately: my “Black Presence” talk at the Mount Independence State Historic Site in Orwell, a talk to a visiting group at the Robert Frost Stone House in South Shaftsbury, and a brief talk about the Old First Church to a group at Hildene in Manchester. I think my speaking season is over, good, as I have to get back to preparing a new edition of my Battle book for spring publication.
I enjoyed learning more about the Church, which is raising money for various maintenance projects on the slate roof, the steeple, etc. It’s a remarkable structure. I was allowed to climb up into the tower (that’s the lower portion of the steeple, with windows). I was speaking alfresco, without slides, but I described the view out the north window over the gravestones of the early settlers of Bennington.
Here are a few more shots, including one showing the “lantern” (the topmost portion) on the ground before it was carted off for restoration. They tell me that I may be invited to give the talk again. I’ll keep you posted.
