New members, milestones, and Jeffers sightings. Send yours to us at news@robinsonjeffersassociation.org.
Welcome to new member Sean Schifano of Baltimore, Maryland.
Congratulations to Brett Colasacco for completing his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago with a dissertation titled Robinson Jeffers: Poet at the End of the World (June 2018).
Congratulations to Jessica Hunt for completing her D.M.A. at the University of Michigan with a dissertation-opera titled Scenes from Thurso’s Landing (May 2019). You can hear an excerpt from the composition here.
Richard Drake, University of Montana, published Charles Austin Beard: The Return of the Master Historian of American Imperialism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018)—an indispensable study for those seeking to understand some of the key ideas that informed Jeffers’ response to World Wars I and II.
Composer Christopher Anderson-Bazzoli, Los Angeles, CA, has released Continent’s End, a song cycle featuring nine of Jeffers’ poems. The Delos recording is available on CD, Apple Music, and Spotify.
A valuable archive of articles, notes, and conference papers written by Tim Hunt over the years may be found at his website.
Longtime member and devoted supporter of RJA, Carol Booth Sharon, Alameda, CA, died in March of 2019. Carol earned a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1988 with a dissertation titled The Tensions of the Mind: Robinson Jeffers’ Rhetoric of Violence.
Peter Hogue, Chico, CA, reports that Alta, a new California arts and culture magazine, features a list of people described as “Our Inspiration” on the title page of its print edition. Robinson Jeffers is named, along with fifty or so others—from Gaspar de Portola to Mark Twain to Kevin Starr. The page doesn’t appear online.
National Geographic Explorer has an article on its webpage titled “See Monterey like a Nat Geo Explorer,” by Tierney Thys (February 19, 2019). Along with a link to the Tor House Foundation website, the article offers suggestions for what to see along the coast, adding, “Eco-poet Robinson Jeffers is the most revered local poet and you could couple reading his poetry with a visit to Tor House.”
The Sunday, March 29, 2019, issue of the Los Angeles Times featured a travel essay by Scott Bradfield titled “Lit Trips: Cruise Around Big Sur for These Literary Adventures Along the Coast.” The unfortunate caption under a photograph of Tor House and Hawk Tower states that Jeffers built the tower “with his owen hands for his wife, Uma.”
The current issue of Orion includes a meditation by Kathleen Dean Moore titled “12 Heart-Breaking Sounds That Will Remain When There Is No Heart to Break for Them”—inspired by Jeffers’ poem “Credo.” The article is cited on the cover of the magazine and has pride of place on the last page. The print version also contains a question for readers—“Would you like to add to this list?”
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