Alexandria Peary reading March 4th

Chester College of New England’s Visiting Writers Series will host a reading by Alexandria Peary at 6 p.m., Wednesday, March 4 in Powers 29. Admission is free for students with ID and a $5 suggested donation for all others.

Peary writes and publishes in a range of genre including poetry, magazine writing/ creative nonfiction, and scholarly writing. Her first book of poems, Fall Foliage Called Bathers & Dancers, was published in September 2008. Her poems have appeared in journals including The Gettysburg Review, The Massachusetts Review, jubilat, Poetry Northwest, Verse, and Crazyhorse, has received the Joseph Langland Award from the Academy of American Poets and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her most recent magazine article was published in late 2008 in the parenting magazine Brain, Child.

Junior Matt Williams and sophomore Ashley Kreutter will be opening for Peary.

excerpt from "i beg for rationalization"
by Matt Williams

san francisco. i have pieced this memory together
from the shreds of old photographs i found in carpet
strands in my room. this was before his mouth could
learn syllables and we understood each other, mystic
symbiosis – varied synaptic impulses charted us
guidelines to understand simply, we were brothers.
there was a spill of translucence on his brow,
and on mine, like a halo? like a white golden swathe.

Student Work Featured in Wadleigh Gallery

This semester, Chester College of New England's Wadleigh Gallery will feature a variety of student work from March through May.

Kicking off the exhibitions will be the student Graphic/Photo/Printmaking show, March 2-13. It will open with a reception on March 4 at 6 p.m. After spring break, the gallery will host a student video installation March 23-27, which will open with a reception on March 25 at 6 p.m. Rounding out the schedule will be five weeks of senior shows, from March 30 through May 4. These shows will feature the best work of Chester College's class of 2009. Openings are Wednesdays at 7 p.m., and will feature readings by graduating seniors from the Writing and Literature department.

For more information about the exhibitions, contact Megan McNaught, visiting assistant professor of fine arts; for information about the readings, contact Monica O'Brien, chair of the Department of Writing and Literature.

Professor Matsumoto Included in National Juried Exhibit

Darrell Matsumoto, associate professor and chair of the Department of Photography/Media Arts & Design at Chester College of New England, is included in The 6th Photographic Image Biennial Exhibition at East Carolina University.

Jurors Robert and Shana Parke Harrison selected Matsumoto's Untitled (container), from the series White. The exhibition will be on view in the Wellington B. Gray Gallery through February 18.

Faculty Member's Work Featured in Turbulence Spotlight

MrsCoryArcangel.com, by Scarlet Electric (the work of Chester College of New England faculty member Rachelle Beaudoin and Jeanne Jo) was featured in a recent Turbulence Spotlight.

Turbulence is a project of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. Now celebrating 12 years, Turbulence has commissioned over 150 works ($600,000) and exhibited and promoted artists' work through its Artists Studios, Guest Curator, and Spotlight sections. As networking technologies have developed wireless capabilities and become mobile, Turbulence has remained at the forefront of the field by commissioning, exhibiting, and archiving the new hybrid networked art forms that have emerged. Turbulence works have been included in the Whitney Museum of American Art's Biennial ('00, '02, '04), and its Bit Streams and Data Dynamics exhibitions; Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea; C-Theory, Cornell University; Ars Electronica, Austria; International Festival of New Cinema and New Media, Montreal; European Media Arts Festival, Germany; and the Sundance Film Festival, among others.

Of Beaudoin and Jo's project Turbulence said: "Part fansite, part cultural critique, part exercise in stalking, 'MrsCoryArcangel.com' is a website devoted to Cory Arcangel. Featuring animated gifs, collage, and textured backgrounds, "MrsCoryArcangel.com"embraces an aesthetic deemed by Arcangel as 'dirt style.' Dirt style, as Arcangel defines it, is the 'true spirit of the web.' The site includes interpretations of Arcangel's projects-instead of endless SuperMario clouds, Princess Toadstool endlessly waiting for Mario. Instead of Number of the Beast compressed 666, the song 500 Miles by the Proclaimers compressed 500 times."

Faculty Member Awarded Humanities Grant

Christopher Volpe, a faculty member in the Integrated Liberal Studies department at Chester College of New England, has been named the humanist in a grant by the New Hampshire Humanities Council to extend the N.H. Seacoast's annual "Jazzmouth" poetry and music event to the greater Portsmouth area.

Volpe will lead a public book-discussion at the Portsmouth Senior Center on Carolyn Cassady's "Off the Road," a memoir by the wife of the real-life protagonist of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road." The discussion will center on the women of the Beat Generation: who were they and in what ways did they contribute to the body of work that has come down to us? Topics may also include the position that women generally occupy in the canonical works of the Beat Generation, the contribution that reclaimed narratives such as Carolyn Cassady's make to our understanding of the blurred line between life and art, and the uses and misuses of memoir, fact, and fiction in general in historical and contemporary letters.

Volpe also will lead a session for children and their parents on "Jazz ABZ," an alphabet primer by contemporary jazz legend Wynton Marsalis which teaches fundamentals of reading through the marriage of music and poetry. For the latter event, Professor Volpe will be joined by music expert Bruce Pingree and several musicians for a demonstration of musical instruments, group singing, and first-hand proof that learning and creativity need not be confined within the borders of any given genre. At the heart of this event will be an introduction to the sheer freedom and joy of language, music, and improvisation, as well as the importance of passing down to children an appreciation for the American art forms of jazz and poetry that predate them.

Faculty Reading

Powers 29 was packed the night of February 4th when three faculty members read to a room of students, colleagues, and friends.



Dean of Students Dr. Byron Petrakis read several poems and a short speculative fiction story.






Writing and Literature teacher Mark Sleiter read a chapter from his manuscript which is still in progress.





Visiting Assistant Professor of Writing and Literature Chris Anderson read his newly edited short story "First Night".





The night wrapped up with a Q&A and discussion about creative processes.

Chester College to Present The Vagina Monologues

Chester College of New England, will host its second annual performance of The Vagina Monologues at 7 p.m., Friday, February 13 in Wadleigh Library. Admission is $2 for students and $5 for the general public. All proceeds will benefit A Safe Place, which provides support and services to victims of domestic abuse.

Chester College’s performance is part of the global V-Day movement to end violence against women and girls. In 2008, more than 4,000 V-Day benefit events took place produced by volunteer activists in the U.S. and around the world, educating millions of people about the reality of violence against women and girls. To date, the V-Day movement has raised more than $60 million and educated millions about the issue of violence against women and the efforts to end it, crafted international educational, media and PSA campaigns, launched the Karama program in the Middle East, reopened shelters, and funded more than 6,000 community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Democratic Republic Of Congo, Haiti, Kenya, South Dakota, Egypt and Iraq. V-Day was named one of Worth magazine's "100 Best Charities" in 2001 and Marie Claire’s “Top Ten Charities” in 2006. The 'V' in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina.

For more information about the V-Day campaign visit www.vday.org.