Dr. Carmella Braniger started by reading three recently published poems, including the story of where each came from and why she is proud of the readership they are receiving. One was a beautiful poem about a violin player in a tavern, another about a librarian in the stacks, and the third about the pear in the bottle—a metaphor of how we are shaped and limited physically as well as spiritually by our surroundings.

Dr. Paul Haspel read some haunting lines from Poe that came to him after the 9-11 terrorism acts, about the powers beyond our control and the dark sky. He also read three poems by Dr. Priscilla Meddaugh, one dealing with the loss of her father.

Dr. Stephen Frech read a poem by Robert Service about a spiritual comprehension in nature, and then he proceeded to show how events of the times (Shackleford’s exploration of the south pole) and near-death experiences are expressed in very similar terms of detecting the spiritual other being their with the survivors. Then he jumped to T.S. Eliot who echoes the Schakleford and Service writings showing the intertextuality of our minds and poetry.

The English faculty sampler reading ended with Dr. Brooks reading several haiku published this year by his students and himself. These haiku were from several anthologies, a new book on writing haiku, and a current issue of Modern Haiku magazine. He concluded by sharing an award-winning haiku about tai-chi, including the judges commentary about why it was selected for this annual award.