Summer 2003
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Contents
Features
Letters
Observations
Centennial spotlight
On campus
Faculty focus
Arts on view
Sports
Books
Advancement
Class notes |
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Books
Author, author!
How We Came to Stand on That Shore
by Jay Rogoff, lecturer in English and liberal studies
River City Publishing, 2003
Jay Rogoff’s second full-length book of poetry is part of the River City Poetry Series, which “features books of national importance by rising stars in the world of poetry,” selected by poet Andrew Hudgins. Referring to Rogoff’s latest book, poet Andrea Holland Budy notes, “In a series of compelling narrative and lyric poems, How We Came to Stand on That Shore examines not only the lives of Rogoff’s European forebears who emigrated to America, but also the circumstances and depths of his own life.” Poet and editor Ronald Wallace says the book “embraces a past that enwraps and enraptures us, a past replete with scatter and leakage that is nonetheless comforting and bright.”
The King in the Tree: Three Novellas
by Steven Millhauser, professor of English
Knopf, 2003
Love is the subject of the latest book from this Pulitzer Prize–winning author. “Not the sweet romantic love of sonnets and Valentine’s Day,” according to the New York Times, “but a darker, more toxic kind of love. Love as suffering and obsession. Love as jealousy, love as illness, love as the destroyer of order, reason, and sanity.” The author explores devotion and denial in the title novella, casting the tragedy of Tristan and Ysolt as a tale of a king’s infatuation with his wife and the agony of her betrayal with his own nephew. “Revenge” is a monologue delivered by a widow giving a tour of her house to her dead husband’s mistress. “An Adventure of Don Juan,” set on a country estate in England, finds the famous lover experiencing the unfamiliarity of unrequited love.
Blue Hour
by Carolyn Forché, professor of English
HarperCollins, 2003
As noted in the New Yorker, “The title poem of Forché’s fourth collection takes the birth of her son as a starting point for contemplation of her own childhood, just after the Second World War, an era when ‘it was not as certain that a child would live to be grown.’ That uncertainty of an individual’s survival at any given point in history informs the first part of this volume, which mounts a quiet protest against the atrocities of the last century and insists that ‘even the most broken life can be restored to its moments.’” Says Publishers Weekly, “Forché’s speaker’s memories…are intermingled with ethereal images of twentieth-century horror….‘In the Exclusion Zones’ is lovely and mysterious in its brevity, but is revealed in the endnotes to refer to the contaminated earth around Chernobyl.…The poems’ success ultimately rests in the reader’s tolerance for gestures aimed at sensuality and sensibility in the face of atrocity….”
Criminal Law Slanguage of New York
by Gary Muldoon ’73 and Glenn Edward Murray
Gould Publishing, 2003
“A lawyer without words or history is a mechanic,” said Sir Walter Scott. This book provides not only the words but their historical basis. It is a legal dictionary that focuses on the shorthand expressions that people in the criminal justice system—lawyers, judges, police, and defendants—commonly use. From “attenuation doctrine” to “zero-tolerance law,” the authors provide more than 600 expressions and definitions, along with citations to court decisions where the expressions are used. Among the more colorful expressions are “six pack” (a set of photographs of six possible suspects) and “queen for a day agreement” (informal federal immunity). Also included are many of the acronyms that abound in law, such as FNU LNU (first name unknown, last name unknown) and EMD (electronic monitoring device, more commonly known as an “ankle bracelet”).
Gary Muldoon, a member of the assigned counsel panel in Monroe County, N.Y., has also coauthored Handling a Criminal Case in New York and Criminal Law in New York.
When I’m With You
by Elizabeth Elder ’67; illustrated by Leslie Mansmann
Islandport Press Inc., 2003
Maine writer Elizabeth Elder lyrically captures childhood moments (picnics by the water, walks with a friend, tossing rocks into the sea) in a read-aloud children’s book illustrated with watercolors. The story features a boy and girl picnicking on the rocks while a bear, a fox, and a bee watch from the bushes and reeds, making only paw prints in the sand, faint noises in the air, and ripples on the water.
Elizabeth Elder, editor of weekly newspapers in southern Maine, has been a teacher and journalist. She is the author of a collection of short stories and one of poetry; this is her first full-color children’s book. —MTS
Get booked
Alumni authors are urged to send copies of their books, publisher’s notes, or reviews, so that Scope can make note of their work in the “Books” column. |
Attention, authors!
Skidmore’s new Colton Alumni Welcome Center would like to showcase alumni authors in its library/lounge. To be included, please send one copy of your full-length published books to: Colton Alumni Welcome Center, Skidmore College, 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866. |
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