GUIDES & INSPIRATIONS
with enduring gratitude

Eighty-one poems by George Starbuck, “widely praised luminary of modern American verse.”

 
 

Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer

OTHER THINKERS
who have guided my perspectives

Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu, MIT Economist, Nobelist
Prof. Sandy Alexandre, MIT Literature
Rev. Jeffrey L. Brown, pastor, community-builder
Prof. Sarah Buie, designer, lead convener, CUHF
The Cloud of Unknowing, unknown author
Theodosius Dobzhansky, evolutionary biologist
Neil Evernden, The Natural Alien
Prof. Deborah K. Fitzgerald, Historian of Technology, MIT
Prof. Lani Guinier, legal scholar, author, civil rights theorist
Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, civil rights activist
Katherine Jackson, visual artist, traveling friend
Rev. Zina Jacques, pastor, community builder
Joanne Kaufman, political scientist, sustainability expert
Fr. Thomas Keating, contemplative monk
Prof. Samuel Jay Keyser, writer, MIT Linguistics, musician
George Lakoff, linguistic scholar; moral politics, works
Lynn Margulis, evolutionary biologist
Carolyn Merchant, historian, The Death of Nature
Prof. Anne McCants, economic historian at MIT
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, philosopher
Prof. Melissa Nobles, MIT political scientist and Chancellor
Heather C. Richardson, historian, author, Letters from an American
Sarah Ruden, classicist, Paul Among The People
Prof. Kieran Setiya, MIT philosopher, author, Life is Hard
Prof. Brad Skow, MIT philosopher, theory of time
Prof. Charles Stewart III, political scientist; founder, MIT Election Lab
Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, author In Praise of Shadows
Rev. Dr. Cheryl Townsend-Gilkes, pastor, MacArthur Professor Emerita at Colby College
Yi-Fu Tuan, humanistic geographer
Diana C. Walsh, former President, Wellesley College, co-founder, CUHF
Prof. Craig Steven Wilder, author, and historian, MIT

detail, Seeds; ©2010 Jon Sachs, photographer

 
 

Great room, Little Windham; Vance Hosford architect

 

A boule bread baked by filmmaker Lillie Paquette

COLLEAGUES
with thanks for joyful collaborations

Kimberly Allen, Director, Media Relations, MIT News
Aina Barton, editor at Orion, In Memoriam
Bara Blender, Sr. Strategist, MIT Office of Communications
Allegra Boverman, photographer
Emerson “Chip” Blake, editor, birder, ecologist
Patricia Brady, writer, thinker, historian
Steve Bradt, Chief Strategic Communications Officer, MIT
Kate Canfield, graphic designer, tennis player
Charles Coe, poet/writer, teacher, musician
Andrea Cohen, poet; director, Blacksmith House
Christine Daniloff, Creative Director, MIT News
Peter Dizikes, Institute Writer, MIT News
Peter Niels Dunn, writer, strategist, musician
Jean Dunoyer, Sr. Editor/Producer, MIT Video Productions
Jenny Fowler, Director, Social Media Strategy, MIT
Chad Galts, Communications Strategist, MIT ICEO
Dore Gardner, documentary photographer
Andrea Golden, graphic designer, artists books, naturalist
Annie Grear, graphic designer, community builder
Fred Golinko, graphic/industrial designer, In Memoriam
Melanie Gonick, Sr. Video Producer, MIT News
Peter F. Hiestand, NIH Program Director
Barbara Hindley, author Grace; Assoc VP, TBF
Megan Hinkley, Sr. Leadership Giving Officer, MIT
Vance Hosford, architect, musician, Little Windham
Richard Howard, photographer
Alfred Ironside, VP of Communications, MIT
Charla Jones, Eu2B, executive, community builder
Peter Kemble, designer, architect, In Memoriam
Jill Kneerim, literary agent, travel friend, In Memoriam
Alison Lanier, writer, media scholar
Joe McMaster, Senior Producer, MIT Video Productions
Christopher Merrill, poet, professor
Anne Marie Michel, Asst. Dean for Development, MIT
Paul Montie, exhibit and website designer
Rose Moss, novelist and short story writer, wise friend
Stephen Oakes, writer, media strategist
Kathryn O’Neill, writer and editor, MIT
Lillie Paquette, filmmaker/storyteller, bread baker
Edith Pearlman, fiction writer, colleague, In Memoriam
Wesley Richardson, Videographer, MIT Video Productions
Professor George Russell, biologist, co-founder Orion
Jon Sachs, photographer, designer, musician
Jennifer Sahn, editor
Michael Sand, museum designer, In Memoriam
Martha Eddison, Senior Communication Strategist, MIT
Wendy C. Simpson, designer, sailor, chef, traveling friend
Barbara Wallraff, author/editor, Ms. Grammar
Karen Watson, visual artist
Maia Weinstock, editor, journalist, author, creator
Aaron R. Weinberger, Chief of Staff for the MIT President
Robert Wilt, web developer, gardener
Kathy Wren, Editorial Director, MIT News
Ande Zellman, media executive; artist; former editor, The Boston Globe Magazine

Nocturne in Black and Gold-The Falling Rocket,1875, J.M. Whistler, public domain

Detail, The Slave Ship, J.M.W. Turner,1840, MFA Boston, public domain

Detail, “Forest,” by Dorothy Dunn, c.1988, ©Dunn Family Foundation

VISUAL ARTISTS
some favorites, among hundreds

David Adjaye, architect
El Anatsui, sculptor
Jennifer Bartlett, visual artist, In the Garden
Banksy
Temo Callahan, designer, creative director (ret.) Clarence House + Studio Printworks
Chen Rong, painter, Nine Dragons
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, installations
Joseph Cornell, bricoleur, collagist
Dorothy Dunn, painter
Olafur Eliasson, large-scale installations
Beth Galston, installation artist
Dore Gardner, documentary photographer
Andrea Golden, prints, books
Franz Hals, painter
Utagawa Hiroshige, ukiyo-e artist
Paul Klee, painter
Fitz Henry Lane, luminist painter
Maya Lin, large-scale environmental works
Agnes Martin, painter
Joel Meyerowitz, photographer
Hayao Miyazaki, film maker
Piet Mondrian, Dutch painter
Jackson Pollock, painter
Wendy Prellwitz, painter, printmaker, architect
Mark Rothko, painter
Anne Silber, printmaker
Pat Steir, painter
J.M.W. Turner, painter
Cy Twombly, works
Johannes Vermeer, Dutch genre painter
Kara Walker, conceptual artist
Carrie Mae Weems, photographer
J.M.Whistler, Nocturne in Black and Gold-Falling Rocket
Kehinde Wiley, contemporary painter

Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows

 

Jorie Graham, To 2040

 

first cover of Atlantic Monthly, 1857

 

detail; quilt by Lucy Mingo, 1979; Voickening Collection

 

“Wherein Verbal Virtue is Rewarded, Crimes Against the Language Are Punished, and Poetic Justice is Done”

PEOPLE OF THE WORD
a few, among hundreds

POETS
A.R. Ammons
John Ashberry
David Barber
Elizabeth Bishop
Lucie Brock-Broido
Kurt Brown
Laure-Anne Bosselaar
Mary Baine Campbell
Amy Clampitt
Charles Coe
Andrea Cohen
Martha Collins
Stephen Cramer
Peter Davison
Mark Doty
David Ferry, works, translation of Gilgamesh
Jorie Graham, works, To 2040
Melissa Green
Linda Gregerson
Seamus Heaney
Ono No Komachi
Gail Mazur
Eric McHenry, The American Scholar
Christopher Merrill
W.S. Merwin
Czeslaw Milosz
Marianne Moore
Linda Pastan
Rainer Maria Rilke
David Rivard, works
Lloyd Schwartz
Izumi Shikibu, Ink Dark Moon
George Starbuck, Tuolomne, Commentary in Salon
Mark Strand
Stephen Tapscott, works
Derek Walcott
Rosanna Warren
Richard Wilbur, Advice for a Prophet
Walt Whitman

EDITORS, PUBLISHERS
Helene Atwan, former director, Beacon Press
Mike Curtis, fiction editor, The Atlantic, In Memoriam
Peter Davison, poet, editor, The Atlantic, In Memoriam
Jill Kneerim, editor, literary agent, In Memoriam
Amy Meeker, former editor, The Atlantic
Lucie Prinz, former editor, The Atlantic
Deanne Urmy, editor, Beacon, Houghton-Mifflin, and Harper Collins/Mariner
Bill Whitworth, editor-in-chief, The Atlantic, In Memoriam
Barbara Wallraff, author, former editor, The Atlantic
Ande Zellman, media executive; editor; visual artist

WRITERS
Patricia Brady, writer/historian, Gaining Ground
Jane Brox, writer/poet, In the Merrimack Valley, All books
Nancy Callahan, The Freedom Quilting Bee
Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millenium
James Carroll, Constantine’s Sword
Samuel L. Clemens/Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, My Mother’s House
Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
Truman Capote, A Christmas Memory
Marjory S. Douglas, The Everglades: River of Grass
Mary Ann Evans/George Eliot, Middlemarch
Robert Finch, The Outer Cape and other books
Adam Gopnik, Paris to the Moon
Barbara Hindley, Grace; TBF, City of Ideas
Molly Ivins, writer, political journalist, humorist
Henry James, Portrait of a Lady
Annie Lamott, Bird by Bird
Helen Elaine Lee, Pomegranate, and other works
Askold Melnyczuk, works, founder, Agni , Arrowsmith Press
John Hanson Mitchell, Ceremonial Time
Toni Morrison, Beloved and other books
Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate
Judith Nies, Unreal City, The Girl I Left Behind
Theodore Rosengarten, All God’s Dangers
Jennifer Rubin, columnist, The Washington Post
Rebecca Solnit, books
Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows
Barbara Wallraff, Word Court, Word Fugitives, The Wordshop
Eudora Welty, works
E.B. White, works
Edith Wharton, works
P.G. Wodehouse, The World of Jeeves and other works

The English Baroque Soloists, with John Eliot Gardiner, conductor

 
 

Aretha Franklin

MUSICIANS, COMPOSERS
some favorites, among hundreds

Johann Sebastian Bach
Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 225
Christ lag in Todesbanden, BWV4
Orgelbüchlein, Ensemble Mare Nostrum
Dietrich Buxtehude, Abenmusik
Johannes Brahms, Requiem, Geistliches Lied
A.K. Callahan, legislator, attorney, fiddle player
Sam Cooke
A Change Is Gonna Come
Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers
Peter N. Dunn, strategist; composer; Silicon Songs
Ella Fitzgerald, recordings
Aretha Franklin
John Eliot Gardiner, conductor
  Monteverdi Choir, YouTube Channel, English Baroque Soloists
George Frideric Handel
  Dixit Dominus HWV 232, Messiah HVW 56
Billie Holiday
Alberta Hunter, Amtrak Blues: about, recording
Indigo Girls
Carole King, Tapestry
Fela Kuti, Gentlemen
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Requiem K.626, Piano Concerto No.12-A major
The O’Neal Twins
Bobby Short Loves Cole Porter, album
Elena Ruehr, works, MIT music theory
Say Amen Somebody, album
Charles Shadle, composer, Choctaw Animals
Talking Heads
Tina Turner
Vox Luminis

 

SINE QUA NON

The Families Hiestand, Callahan, Blackman, Watkins, Dunn, Khalsa, Warne, Hennessey ~ and the Amigas

… The earth is fair;
all that the earth demands is the earth’s share;
all we pervade and revel in and vow
never to lose, always to hold somehow,
we hold of earth, in temporary care.

— George Starbuck, from “For an American Burial”