Brattleboro-based poet Morgan English reads her poem "Emily, Or to Light, Once Again", which was commissioned for and appears in the 2025 monograph "Emily Mason: Unknown to Possibility".

This episode explores the life and work of abstract painter Emily Mason, who, in the wake of her death in 2019, publication of a first 2025 monograph and first Paris exhibition, is experiencing a huge surge of interest internationally and has been labeled an 'American genius' by The New Yorker magazine. The 38-minute piece is broken down into sections detailed below featuring interviews with Mason’s daughter Melany Kahn and Steven Rose, Mason’s former studio manager and current executive director of the Emily Mason and Alice Trumbull Mason Foundation, and the voice of Emily Mason herself thanks to various archived tapes previously unavailable to the public. The discussion covers Mason's artistic journey from the 1950s until her death, her deep connection to both New York City and Brattleboro, Vermont, and her significant but under recognized contributions to abstract expressionism. Key topics include her approach to her work where she struggled to ‘get herself out of the way,’ her relationship to her namesake, poet Emily Dickinson, the 2025 publication of her comprehensive monograph "Emily Mason: Unknown to Possibility" by Rizzoli, her first Paris exhibition at Almine Rech Gallery, and her philanthropic legacy in Brattleboro including support for the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC). The episode also delves into her family background, including her relationship to her mother, Alice Trumbull Mason (also an abstract painter), and the family’s struggles with alcoholism and addiction, her long marriage to painter Wolf Kahn, her 30-year teaching career at Hunter College, and her printmaking work. The podcast concludes with details about her death and burial at her Vermont farm and her daughter’s reading of Dickinson’s poem "Hope is the Thing with Feathers." See time stamps for guide through sections: Introduction (0-4:30) “American Genius” Mason defies categorization as interest in her work surges internationally / deep bonds to Brattleboro and New York City Section One: (4:30) Mason’s Artistic Methods and Practice Section Two (13:00) Mason’s Life, Work and Relationships in Brattleboro Section Three: (20:10) Mason’s Early Life, Education, Teaching and Family Life Section Four (29:00) Mason’s Dedication to Mother Alice Trumbull Mason’s Legacy Section Five (31:40) Mason’s End of Life and Legacy

Marty Jezer was a writer, columnist, activist and self-help exemplar who was well known in Brattleboro and beyond. Narrated by his long-time partner artist and writer Arlene Distler with commentary from Jezer’s friends and associates Steve Minkin and Judy Ashkenaz, the podcast gives a sense of Marty’s style and commitment to political dialogue. We learn about his books on Abbie Hoffman ('Abbie Hoffman: American Rebel', upon which the film 'Steal This Movie"' was largely based) and others, his attempt to start a new ‘Citizens Party" and relationship with US Senator Bernie Sanders, his daughter Kathryn Jezer-Morton, who is also a writer, and his weekly column in the daily Brattleboro Reformer. We hear from stuttering expert Woody Starkweather who reflects on how Marty’s autobiography 'Stuttering: A Life Bound Up in Words' remains a beacon for the stuttering community. We hear how Marty co-founded with Distler the Brattleboro writers' group 'Write Action,' which is a founding partner in the Brattleboro Words Project. We learn of his love of jazz, especially 'scat' and hear an example from singer Mary LaRose, and how each year scholarships in Marty's name are given to local students studying both jazz and journalism. We hear Distler read her poem 'Centering' about Marty's last days before he succumbed to cancer in 2005. The podcast ends with the image friends carrying Marty’s coffin along South Main Street to the tune of 'Oh When the Saints Go Marching In” to his final resting place at Shir Harim cemetery. He would have loved that.

Brattleboro ‘circus man’ Kevin O’Keefe takes us on a journey through time and space, sprinkling kooky and colorful newspaper accounts of the various circuses that passed through town with his own erudite observations on how the tradition lives on through institutions like the New England Center for Circus Arts (NECCA) launching the first annual Vermont Circus Festival November 2 to 9 in Brattleboro. In his unique and entertaining manner, Kevin makes the case that Brattleboro, Vermont is the circus capital of America. Kevin describes how the train would roll into town in the 1800s, listing a difficult to imagine number of rail cars filled with animals and equipment. He starts at the old Island Park, an amusement pavilion on an island in the middle of the Connecticut River over the old Anna Hunt Marsh Bridge adjacent to the rail station where circuses would perform to thousands. He discusses PT Barnum’s visit to another circus location, Frost Fields, site of today’s Cersosimo Lumber yard, and how Jumbo the Elephant bathed in the Whetstone Brook. He paints an engaging portrait of ‘Tom Thumb’ – the 28-inch tall performer – and other circus acts of the time. He also adds amusing details some of the petty crimes that occurred during the circus performances. He ends at the Brattleboro Fairgrounds, site of today's Brattleboro Union High School, where giant circus spectacles last took place. On more serious note, he reflects on why Vermont has been home to so many circus performers and details several circuses that persist to this day here, including the legendary Rob Mermin's Circus Smirkus, his own Circus Minimus, and Troy Wunderle and his Wunderle’s Big Top Adventures. He also highlights twin aerialists Elsie and Serenity Smith Forchion’s New England Center for Circus Arts (NECCA), America’s largest professional circus school, and plugs NECCA’s first annual Vermont Circus Week from November 2 to 9, 2025 in – you guessed it - Brattleboro, Vermont.

This podcast features three interviews with the founders and family members who founded and continue to grow world-class puppetry at Sandglass Theater in Putne,y Vermont, just north of Brattleboro. Ines Zeller Bass and Eric Bass, co-founders of Sandglass, set the stage in the first seven minutes, discussing how they met in Germany (where Ines is from) and their unique approach to puppetry and ensemble theater. They discuss how being part of community has shaped their work. They emphasize their unique collaborative process of creating puppets and scripts and how they nurture and value the puppet's "soul" over ‘manipulation’ to ‘listen’ to the puppet's voice. Deeply rooted in images and metaphors, they describe how their work goes beyond linear storytelling toward a non-traditional, fragmented storytelling style that invites audience participation. From about seven to 12 minutes, Eric and Ines' daughter Shoshana Bass discusses the theater's origins in Germany in 1982, its relocation to Vermont in 1986, and the transformation of an old livery stable into a 100 seat puppet theater. She says, as an ensemble company, Sandglass creates original works, offers programming for all ages, and addresses pressing community issues like refugees and dementia. She talks about Sandglass' educational offerings including summer intensives, camps, and workshops. She describes navigating a leadership transition from her parents to the next generation while exploring the theater's future and community engagement. Jana Zeller, the elder daughter of Eric and Ines, rounds out the podcast. She discusses her role in continuing the family's legacy overseeing youth programming and outreach and performing in various productions, including children's hand puppetry shows she's inherited from Ines' repertoire as well as her own original work. She discusses how Sandglass has moved beyond Putney to foster partnerships in Brattleboro whose creative mix well supports their work. Jana highlights the unique aspects of puppetry, including its capacity for metaphor and the emotional connection it fosters. She describes her own trajectory in puppetry and special fondness for hand puppets. She details Sandglass's community engagement, such as the "Puppets in Paradise" event and the "Puppets in the Green Mountains" festival, which showcases international puppetry. Jana reflects on how difficult international touring has become and how Sandglass, while maintaining its historically deep connections to the international puppet community, is excited to expand its regional reach by designing a traveling 'Puppet Wagon' to bring this meaningful art form to communities in rural Vermont communities and beyond.

Mary Rogers Cabot (Aug 20, 1856 to April 30, 1932) is mostly known for writing a two-volume history of Brattleboro entitled 'Annals of Brattleboro, 1681-1895' (Brattleboro, Vt.: E. L. Hildreth & Co., 1921 ) but her true claim to fame, hardly recognized, was being famed writer Rudyard Kipling's best friend during the years he and his budding family lived in the Brattleboro area until a legal battle between Kipling and his brother in law erupted into a globally publicized circus and the Kipling family escaped back to England. Mary's account of Kipling's time in Brattleboro is the best source of his incredibly productive life in Vermont. The episode also breaks new ground in exploring Kipling and Cabot's shared love for the same man as the basis of their bond. The episode begins discussing Cabot's life as a 'cosmopolitan villager' -- a wealthy, independent, intellectual and world-wise woman of the late 1800s, who possessed an unbridled curiosity about the people and goings-on in the town and its place in the world. Her extensive volunteerism, philanthropic life and approach to town history is presented and the Kipling quote she used as an epigraph to the Annals is offered. We hear her origin story and the source of her father's fortune as a merchant trader in the cotton port town of Wetumka, Alabama. We meet her sister Grace Holbrook and brother William Brooks Cabot, a noted engineer and explorer who documented Canadian indigenous peoples in books ('In Northern Labrador,' 1912) and photographs collected under the William Brooks Cabot collection at the Smithsonian. We learn that Mary was likely the prototype for William Dean Howell's 1888 novel 'Annie Kilburn' and hear a quote from that book. We learn about Cabot's deep feelings for Wolcott Balastier, Kipling's wife Carolyn Balastier (Carrie's) brother. Details of the Balastier family's Brattleboro home, Wolcott's life as a literary wunderkind in London, his shocking death at age 30 and his relationship with Kipling and Cabot are discussed. Mary's voice comes to life in multiple excerpts from ther letters to her sister Grace found in the Howard C. Rice Kipling Collection at the University of Vermont. Sleigh rides at midnight, 'chafing dish suppers', Kipling and his wife's relationship, children and their home 'Naulakha' (still preserved in Brattleboro by Landmark Trust) and aspects of the artistic collaboration between Cabot and Kipling are revealed with select commentary from Kipling scholar Professor Christopher Benfey. We share Cabot's feelings about the feud that ripped the Balastier family apart and experience Kipling's tearful farewell to Cabot and departure from Brattleboro, one of the two places he loved most in the world (the other was 'Bombay'). The episode ends with Mary's last days, how she lived her whole life at the Terrace Street house in Brattleboro that still exists today, her family's burial grounds and how she was remembered by peers of her time.

Narrator Daniel Toomey, who researched and wrote this podcast for the Brattleboro Words Trail, discusses Pulitzer winning poet and playwright Robert Frost's (1874 – 1963) influence and philosophical imprint on Marlboro College. 'The Road Not Taken' is read by William Edelglass, a Philosophy Professor at Marlboro for the last 12 years of its existence (who also provides a more complete reflection on the college and its impact in a longer podcast accompanying this 'bonus' podcast). Edelglass also quotes from Frost poems 'Kitty Hawk' and 'Directive', and the piece ends with a line from that last poem: 'Here are hour waters and your watering place / drink and be whole again / beyond confusion.' Toomey, who also taught at Marlboro College, describes college founder Walter Hendricks devotion to Frost and how he brought him into its 'act of creation'. In the years subsequent to its opening in 1947, Frost spent considerable time on the new Marlboro College campus, visiting the Hendricks family, talking to students informally as a visiting associate in teaching, as Hendricks called his unpaid position, and participating in the 1948 inauguration graduation, as well as the 1950 graduation during which he received from Marlboro his 22nd honorary degree. Frost's democratic and characteristically American ideal of the shoestring start pointed toward a grander notion, carrying echoes from his reading of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henri Bergson and William James that was at the heart of much of his thinking, forming something out of nothing, making an immaterial idea substantive, convinced that the act of creation itself is the central purpose of our existence.

Narrator /Philosopher William Edelglass, PhD taught the last 12 years of Marlboro College before it closed in 2020 amid strong feelings in the community about the loss of a 'sacred place' of learning of particular import to Brattleboro. The gorgeous campus is now owned by the Marlboro Music Festival which brings world-class musicians to Potash Hill in Marlboro every summer and had enjoyed close ties to the college. Edelglass reflects on what attracted him and others to Marlboro and made the college the 'beautiful thing' it was and also a victim of changes in American higher education and society at large. He discusses the origins of Marlboro College, founded by Walter Hendricks who brought in Robert Frost as the college's first trustee and whose educational philosophy shaped the college's approach to students and learning. He shares how Hendricks founded the school after creating a post WWII college for veterans in Europe, and how veterans helped build the college, literally and figuratively, and shaped it as 'a training ground for democratic citizens to participate fully in civic life.' Universal particpation in a regular 'town meeting' gave students a rare say in essential campus decision-making. He discusses how Hendricks was fired after accusing colleagues and students of being Communists during the red scare. He discusses the shift in leadership to Tom Ragle who led the school for 23 years and brought in the 'plan of concentration' where students did a PhD-like defense of their topic for sometimes prominent outside examiners. He discussed the impact Marlboro had on the larger Brattleboro area and how many creatives and politically minded folks who went and/or taught at Marlboro have enriched the region, especially people like political leaders Emilie Kornheiser Sara Coffey and others and artists John Willis, Jay Craven, Blanche and Louis Moyse, Met Mott, and more. He spoke of the importance of the writing requirement and how many authors arose from Marlboro like T. Hunter Wilson and Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina. He described the painful process that led to the decision to close the campus and partner with Emerson College in Boston to form the Marlboro Institute of Liberal and Interdisciplinary Studies. He discusses the current stewardship of Marlboro Music Festival over the some 65 buildings and lush grounds and new programs happening in the old Marlboro campus, like the Marlboro Studio School and the Contemplative Semester. He ends with reflections on how Marlboro College lives on through the festival and in the many people who came there and settled to contribute in many ways to the greater Brattleboro area, and how it was 'a beautiful thing.'

Narrator and Words Trail co-producer Steve Hooper introduces Chestnut Hill, a special little neighborhood just above Downtown Brattleboro marked by an old reservoir, houses with spectacular views and access to the lovely Retreat Trails network. Steve describes visiting his grandparents, Howard Crosby and Amy Rice, his aunt Marion McCune Rice and uncle Howard C. Rice Jr. at their respective homes there. The Rice family's creative, cosmopolitan and community-minded lives and spirits helped shape the identity of Brattleboro. Howard and Amy were the first to build a house at the apex of Chestnut Hill after a former park created by publisher George Crowell was closed. That house at 105 Chestnut Hill, with its wonderful view of the Connecticut River, still stands today. Howard C. Rice was the first editor/publisher of The Brattleboro Daily Reformer, launching its first edition in 1913. (The Reformer was founded as the weekly Windham County Reformer in 1876.) He led the paper for more than 40 years until his son-in-law John S. Hooper (Steve's dad) took over for a collective and continuous leadership of the daily paper for more than 60 years. John S. Hooper married the Rice’s eldest daughter Marion in 1931 in the rose garden behind the house. Together they founded and led the Stephen Daye Press, one of the best regional book publishers in New England at that time. The press was sold after WW2 and John Hooper assumed the reins of the Reformer when Howard C. retired. Steven introduces the story of his Aunt Marion, who lived at 90 Chestnut HIll, a World War I American Red Cross nurse for four years in the thick of fighting in France. Her extraordinary body of letters and photographs, which Steve discovered after her death, poignantly describe her war experience. Steve's daughter Althaea reads from the letters in the first half of the podcast. Steve's wife Jackie Hooper narrates the second half of the podcast about the founding of the Reformer and family life with Howard C. Rice and Amy and gives a brief history of Chestnut Hill itself. Actors recount colorful vignettes of life at the time, including tales of stolen rings and dogs. She also tells of Steve's Great Uncle Howard C. Rice, Jr.and his wife France Chalufour Rice, who lived at 160 Chestnut Hill in a house closer to the famed Retreat Tower. Howard Jr. was an assistant librarian for rare books and special collections and an associate professor at Princeton University from 1948 until his retirement in 1970. He wrote several books on Kipling including “Rudyard Kipling in New England.” His research papers, originally housed at Marlboro College, are now at the University of Vermont library providing crucial information on Kipling and his Brattleboro friends. All in all, the podcast provides a charming account of the achievements of an extraordinary family with a very special place in Brattleboro history.

Dr. Amer Latif introduces us to the Persian poet Rumi, who, though born in Konya, Turkey, more than than 800 years ago, remains one of the world’s most beloved and inspiring poets. Dr. Latif talks about Rumi ’s surprising connections to Brattleboro, reads a bit of his work in English and in Persian, and plays the sacred Sufi flute - the ney - to accompany this story. He shares the story of how Brattleboro's Threshold Publishing played a pivotal role in introducing the Rumi to America and a larger world. Latif, a professor of cross cultural studies at Emerson College, says: "Scriptures vary, cultures vary; The book of nature is what we have in common, and Rumi helps us read that book." He talks about the Threshold Society and Kabir and Camile Helminsky's bringing musicians and whirling dervishes from Rumi's Sufi order to Brattelboro and on US tours which popularized Rumi and Sufism, and describes how these traditions remain in this area.