April is National Poetry Month
...and Film Bussabun has a spring poem for you.
Campus is warming up, so here’s a spring poem for you to indulge in while sitting on the quad playing with the squirrels!
After the Winter
by Claude McKay
Some day, when trees have shed their leaves
And against the morning’s white
The shivering birds beneath the eaves
Have sheltered for the night,
We’ll turn our faces southward, love,
Toward the summer isle
Where bamboos spire the shafted grove
And wide-mouthed orchids smile.
And we will seek the quiet hill
Where towers the cotton tree,
And leaps the laughing crystal rill,
And works the droning bee.
And we will build a cottage there
Beside an open glade,
With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,
And ferns that never fade.
Jane and I hope everyone can find peace and time to relax in this busy time of the semester. Take a little walk outside, read some poems, soak up some sun, and have some fun! More spring poems for you to check out here.
Alpha Delta Phi Society
Visiting Writers Series
An Evening with K-Ming Chang
Tuesday, April 12, 2022 at 7:00 PM
https://bowdoin.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_G3IppJUwSIS29IS8Ny6UOA
Join us for an evening with author K-Ming Chang, moderated by John F. and Dorothy H. Magee Associate Professor of Asian Studies and English Belinda Kong and Elina Zhang '16. Chang is a Kundiman fellow, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree. She is the author of the New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice novel Bestiary (One World/Random House, 2020), which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award. In 2021, her chapbook Bone House was published by Bull City Press. Her short story collection, Gods of Want, is forthcoming from One World, as well as a novel titled Organ Meats.
Photo courtesy Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau
Holocaust Commemorative Lecture: Holocaust survivor Rudy Horowitz discusses his memoir “Avoiding the Cracks,” in the context of today’s war in Ukraine.
April 28,4:30pm
Lancaster Lounge
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Faculty, Major,
and Alumni Profiles
Associate Professor of English
and Chair of English Department
Guy Mark Foster
Photo courtesy Bowdoin College
Currently Reading: Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy—A Polyamory Memoir by Rachel Krantz
This semester, Foster is teaching at both ends of the English curriculum at Bowdoin: an introductory-level class, Introduction to LGBTQ Fiction, and an advanced seminar on James Baldwin.
“In LGBTQ fiction, I try to foreground not simply sexuality, but trying to see how sexuality is always impacted by race issues, even though we might think that these things are seen as separate,” Foster says.
Of his James Baldwin seminar he says, “James Baldwin is one of my favorite writers and engages with the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality, but he also has this incisive and passionate critique and understanding of American racial history.”
Foster encourages his students to practice an embodied learning as they tackle highly emotional and poignant texts in both courses.
“[It is important] to bring in an understanding of a text that is not simply cerebral and intellectual, but involves your own body and your emotions,” Foster says. ”I think the best learning happens when there is a combination of the head and the heart.”
Outside of the classroom, Foster continues to develop his research and book project about interacial intimacies.
English Major
Lotte Parsons ‘22
Photo courtesy Lotte Parsons
Lotte Parsons ‘22 explored disciplines from biology to government before eventually settling on the English major.
“Last minute, I realized that the classes I like the most are my English classes,” she says.
Parsons was first captivated by her first year seminar with Professor Alex Marzano-Lesnevich Memoir as Testimony. She really enjoyed the small class setting that allowed her to build relationships with her professor and peers.
Parsons chose to minor in Government and Legal Studies and has found a path to use her knowledge from both her minor and her major, particularly to drive social change.
“I’m probably going to law school, but not for a couple years. I’m working with The Every Voice Coalition, and we are working on getting a bill, that we help write, passed in Maine around campus sexual violence, like on-campus support measure for survivors of sexual violence and prevention training,” she says.
Looking ahead, Parsons hopes to keep working with the nonprofit sector and in the field of social justice.
