This year marks 100 years of Vermont State Parks, and 50 years of Vermont Humanities. We’ve joined together in celebration of our joint anniversaries all summer with Words in the Woods, a free in-person poetry series in State Parks across Vermont, with poets like Verandah Porche, Allison Prine, Elizabeth Powell, and Ellen “LN” Bethea.

The best part of it all? You! Thank you for making these days in the parks so wonderful, from M. Philo and Kill Kare, to Molly Stark and Knight Point. Our State Parks are so much better when we share them together.

We hope you will join us for the final Words in the Woods of the season this Saturday, August 10 at 11 a.m. at Coolidge State Park in Plymouth with poet Major Jackson!

This poem, originally published by the Academy of American Poets on 2021, shows the emotion that Jackson’s writing conveys in the form of glaciers, pines, waterfalls, and stars.

Let Me Begin Again

Let me begin again as a quiet thought
in the shape of a shell slowly examined
by a brown child on a beach at dawn
straining to see their future. Let me begin
this time knowing the drumming in my dreams
is me inheriting the earth, is morning
lighting up the rivers. Let me burn
my vanities: old music in the pines, sifters
of scotch, a day moon like a signature
of night. This time, let me circle
the island of my fears only once then
live like a raging waterfall and grow
a magnificent mustache. Let me not ever be
the birdcage or the serrated blade or
the empty season. Dear Glacier, Dear Sea
of Stars, Dear Leopards disintegrating
at the outer limits of our greed; soon we will
encounter you only in motivational tweets.
Reader, I should have married you sooner.
This time, let me not sleep like the prophet who
believes he’s seen infinity. Let me run
at break-neck speeds toward sceneries
of doubt. I have no more dress rehearsals
to attend. Look closer: I am licking my lips.

Major Jackson is the author of six books of poetry, including Leaving Saturn (2002), which won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize for a first book of poems. He has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and has been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress.

Register for Words in the Woods

Park entrance is complimentary for Words in the Woods attendees, thanks to our partners at Vermont State Parks who celebrate their 100th anniversary this year.

Words in the Woods is a free in-person poetry series created in partnership with Vermont State Parks and supported by the Vermont Arts Council, the WaterWheel Foundation, and a generous Northeast Kingdom donor in honor of poet Judy Chalmer.

Just Two Weeks until Crossroads opens at the St. Albans Museum!

St. Albans Museum and Vermont Humanities, in partnership with New Hampshire Humanities, are excited to welcome you to the opening reception of the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street traveling exhibition, Crossroads: Change in Rural America on Saturday, August 24 at the St. Albans Museum.

Join us for a FREE special screening of the documentary Land of Promise accompanied by a panel discussion and Question & Answer session with local scholars after the reception.

RSVP to the Exhibit Opening

The exhibit, which will visit six communities in our two states through August 2025, explores the challenges and opportunities in rural settings across the United States throughout the past century.
Crossroads: Change in Rural America has been made possible in Vermont and New Hampshire by the Vermont Humanities and New Hampshire Humanities.

Crossroads: Change in Rural America is part of Museum on Main Street, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and State Humanities Councils nationwide. Support for Museum on Main Street has been provided by the United States Congress.

Photos: Courtesy of Beowulf Sheehan, and Library of Congress.
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