Vol. LXXXVII, No. 3.5 DEERFIELD ACADEMY, DEERFIELD, MA 01342
September 23, 2012
Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins to speak at opening Academy Event A day + with Billy Collins: more chances to interact By EMILY NG Editorial Associate U.S. Poet Laureate (20012003) Billy Collins will be our guest for a night of recited poetry on October 4. Opportunities to interact with Mr. Collins are available through a poetry contest and an informal Q&A session. While the Thursday night Academy Event is the highlight of his visit, Mr. Collins will be available to students on many other occasions. English teacher Heather Liske, who is in charge of organizing the visit, has worked to insure that as many students as possible can meet Mr. Collins in an informal setting. Mr. Collins will hold a poetry workshop with eight students.
To be selected, students have been invited to submit an original poem and explanatory statement to Ms. Liske. This prized opportunity to have a poem reviewed by Mr. Collins will take place during faculty break on Thursday, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., followed by a luncheon with students. In the early evening, faculty members will have an opportunity to dine with Mr. Collins in the Caswell Library before the Academy event. At 7:00 PM, Stefani Kuo ’13 and Ben Turner ’13, co-editors of the literary magazine Albany Road, will introduce Billy Collins to the whole school assembled in the large auditorium. Mr. Collins will begin the academy event, and although there will be a poetry
reading, the rest is a mystery. Immediately following the event, Mr. Collins will be signing books and broadsides in the living room of Ephraim Williams. His books will be available there for purchase, including his latest publication, Horoscopes for the Dead. As the final event on Friday morning, there will be a continental breakfast and informal Q&A session with Mr. Collins in the Hilson Gallery. This setting provides a much more informal ambiance, Ms. Liske said, so students will be able to hear even more of Mr. Collins’ personality and wisdom. Students are encouraged to ask first period teachers if it is possible to take advantage of the special opportunity.
Landing a Poet Laureate: choosing, designing the event Last year, the Academy was fortunate enough to host W.S. Merwin, the current U.S. Poet Laureate, and after much effort and planning, has the opportunity to welcome Billy Collins this fall. “We landed on Collins because he’s engaging and warm, and we knew that he’d hit it out of the park. Also, he shares an agent with previous guest, W.S.
Merwin, making arrangements much easier,” English teacher Heather Liske said. Head of School Margarita Curtis said Mr. Collins’s visit will launch the year in a thoughtful and reflective tone. “Poetry is a good antidote to the life we live here, which is very task and goal oriented,” she said. “Poetry is a balancing element;
it’s almost like a deep breath.” Madeline Moon ’16 said, “It’s a great honor to have him on campus, and during the Q&A session, students will be able to take advantage and ask questions about him and writing as a career. Many will see writing in a different way and start to appreciate it a way they’ve never have before.”
Fallen DA students: Johnson brothers ’37 memorialized on street signs Monday
By KRISTY HONG editor-in-chief
Allan Joel and Thomas Wells Johnson ’37, World War II pilots and brothers whose names are etched in the granite base around the flagpole near the Memorial Building, were killed five days apart in an aerial raid over Germany. “That means the mother received one notification letter, and five days later she received another letter,” said John Cycz, co-chairman of the Deerfield Veterans Street Sign Committee. “You just have to imagine what it was like to be that parent.” The Deerfield Veterans Street Sign Committee will honor the brothers this Monday at 9 a.m. at the intersection of Routes 5 and 10 and the north end of Old Main Street. They will read biographies of the soldiers and unveil two blue, 36 by 9 inch
signs. The signs will rest on top of a street sign to memorialize the brothers. “We wanted to find another way to recognize them besides putting their names on a monument,” Chairman Doug Tierney said. “We came across something in the eastern part of the state, which was to develop signs and put them on top of street signs in proximity to where the men lived.”
“We have not been able to reach any Johnson family. We see the Academy as the Johnson family.”
-Doug Tierney
The Johnson brothers are among the 23 Deerfield soldiers who lost their lives in war. Seven of them graduated from the Academy. With the help of private donations, a project to
have all soldiers memorialized over street signs is underway. “Usually a family member will say a few words and pull off the veil [covering the sign] at the end of the ceremony,” Mr. Tierney said. “We have not been able to reach any Johnson family. We see the Academy as the Johnson family.” The Committee hopes to have a senior, junior, sophomore and freshman at the unveiling and as many members of the community as possible. “We think it’s important that DA participates since it has a rich, strong history about character, values and service,” Mr. Tierney said. “We think it’s equally important that today’s students of the 21st century get to understand 19th and 20th century graduates who helped shape this country.” Continued on the back page
Steven Kovich Billy Collins will be on campus from Thursday, Oct. 4 to Friday, Oct.5.
Tatum McInerney and Tara Murty
Teachers and students take on Collins By CHARLOTTE ALLEN Editorial Associate The first time Stefani Kuo ’13 encountered Billy Collins was in a four-line poem in his poetry collection Ballistics. Titled “Divorce,” the poem described two spoons that turn into hostile forks, hiring knives to settle the papers. “The entire poem is like a pictograph,” Kuo said. “The visuals are so basic and common. People assume poetry is obscure and deep and profound. The moment you read something that simple and almost childlike in its direct description, you’re surprised by how poetic that is.” Kuo read the book from cover to cover one Wednesday afternoon. “After the first poem, I started laughing aloud to myself and kept reading,” she said. “It just got funnier and funnier. His writing is direct, relatable and lightheartedly funny without being dense, morbid or undecipherable.” Kuo, the rest of the student body, faculty and staff, received a copy of Collins’ Sailing Alone Around the Room at the beginning of the school year. In preparation for the second Academy Event featuring a U.S. poet laureate, English teachers are required to spend at least four days looking at poems from the book. Teachers
have taken different approaches to the assignment. English teacher Mark Scandling holds “Poetry Fridays,” during which students read poems aloud and “enjoy Collins’ wit and wisdom,” he said. Michael Schloat is showing videos of Collins reading his work and having his students read poems in class, while Heather Liske’s class is on “a steady diet of Billy Collins,” she said. “I am definitely excited about his visit, because it is a much more powerful experience to hear him in person, when the words live in a way they can’t when you are just reading his poems alone in your room,” Ms. Liske continued. Like the faculty, students said they are eagerly awaiting Collins’ arrival. Nina Sola ’13 said, “I have enjoyed the poems so far and cannot wait to hear him speak in person,” while Izzy Tang ’14 said, “After all the hype leading up to the event, I am excited to hear what he has to say.” Though the style of the Academy Event will be similar to W.S. Merwin’s visit last year, English Department Chair Mark Ott said Collins is a different kind of poet than Merwin. “Merwin is a poet of mystery,” he said. “Billy Collins is mysterious, too, but he is also more a poet of pleasure. His work is both serious and funny, thoughtful and whimsical.”