Laura Reyome

Juliana Gray, assistant professor of English and recent winner of Syracuse University's Stone Canoe Award for poetry, joked about the prize: “The stone canoe sculpture is very heavy. I think it's made of bronze, so it's maybe twenty, twenty-five pounds. I intend to work out with it in my office. Look for me with really toned arms this summer.”

Before the summer starts and she begins her exercise regimen with her heavy prize, Gray regaled the campus community with a reading of love poems at the Women’s Studies Roundtable on March 5.

Perhaps you’ve seen the flyers around Seidlin, or maybe you have a friend doing it, or possibly, you have absolutely no idea what I am writing about—but it is almost that time of the year again. I don’t mean Christmas or New Year's or anything like that. No, I am talking about the most fabulous time of the year: November. Yes, it might snow. Yes, it’ll probably be cold. And yes, you’re probably going to be bogged down in exams, essays, and all sorts of projects, but it is the best time of the year! And why is that, you might ask? Because it is National Novel Writing Month.

I have never seen a Stanley Kubrick film, but I've heard them mocked and praised. I've listened to students get into huge arguments over whether his adaptation of an author's work was good or bad, but I've never actually sat down and watched one. I did not to a lecture looking to learn more or cultivate an interest in Kubrick, but it was inevitable.

It is not everyday that a writer is fantastic at their craft, a talented orator and an overall fabulous person. Alfred University was graced on Nov. 20 with the presence of a poet who shines in all three of those categories: Jean Valentine.

The current Poet Laureate of New York State, Jean Valentine is, as Assistant Professor of English Juliana Gray puts it, “sublime.” With a voice that could melt butter, Valentine read to a captive audience selections from her most recent book “Little Boat, Lucy” (a chapbook that will be released in February 2009) and some of her unpublished work.