QUOTE OF THE WEEK

In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore said, “It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.”

In life, no matter where you started from or where you’re at, there’s always room to grow. Self-improvement, although sometimes challenging and laborious, can be a fulfilling and worthwhile endeavor. And it’s never too late to start.

As you progress through the semester, remember that it doesn’t always matter how you started, it matters how you finish. There is always time to improve, whether it’s developing better study habits or perfecting your self-care routine. Grow something sustainable and beautiful.

THIS WEEK AT FALVEY

Monday, March 20

Mindfulness Monday | 1-1:30 p.m. | Virtual | Free & Open to Villanova Students, Faculty, and Staff

Shadow of a Taxman: Who Funded The Irish Revolution (1919-21)? | 4-5:30 p.m. | Speakers’ Corner | Free & Open to the Public | Light Refreshments Served

The Learners’ Studio/Center for Speaking and Presentation | 4-9 p.m. | Room 301 | Free

Tuesday, March 21

The Learners’ Studio/Center for Speaking and Presentation | 4-9 p.m. | Room 301 | Free

Wednesday, March 22

Spring 2023 Falvey Forum Workshop: Intro to Transkribus | 12-1 p.m. | Virtual | Free & Open to the Villanova Community | Register Here

The Learners’ Studio/Center for Speaking and Presentation | 4-9 p.m. | Room 301 | Free

Thursday, March 23

Interfaith Human Library: Where Books Talk and We All Learn about Life in a Multi-Faith World | 4-5:30 p.m. | Speakers’ Corner | Free & Open to Villanova Students, Faculty, & Staff | Light Refreshments Served | Register Here

The Learners’ Studio/Center for Speaking and Presentation | 4-9 p.m. | Room 301 | Free

Friday, March 24

Villanova Gaming Society Meeting | 2:30-4:30 p.m. | Speakers’ Corner | Free & Open to the Public

Sunday, March 26

The Learners’ Studio/Center for Speaking and Presentation | 3-9 p.m. | Room 301 | Free

HOLIDAYS THIS WEEK

Photo by Yoksel 🌿 Zok on Unsplash

Today, March 20, is the Spring Equinox, or the first official day of spring. Fittingly, International Day of Happiness is also celebrated today. Take some time to do something that makes you happy today, especially if that something involves spending some time outside (even if the weather isn’t quite the sunny, mid-70s spring day we’re hoping for). And, if you’re in the mood for a sweet treat, you can swing by Rita’s and take advantage of their annual free water ice celebration.

Tomorrow, March 21, is World Poetry Day, a day for appreciating the art and craft of poetry. If you’re the creative-type, you can celebrate by trying your hand at poetry, whether it’s writing a poem about something that inspires you or reciting a piece at a  poetry event. If you’re more of a reader, Falvey has a vast collection of poetry to tickle your fancy, from classics like Poe’s The Raven (which has an amazing narration from the late Christopher Lee here) to more recent staples, such as Milk and Honey. Still looking for more? You’re welcome to attend our 2023 Literary Festival Event featuring poet Donika Kelly next week on March 30.

Feeling bogged down by the pressures of the semester? Give yourself a break from the seriousness by celebrating International Goof-Off Day on Wednesday, March 22. While goofing off certainly won’t solve all your problems, letting some silliness into your day can help relieve anxiety and bring levity during times of stress.

In the mood for some greasy, delicious food? This Friday, March 24, is National Cheesesteak Day. Whether you prefer your cheesesteaks from one of the (tourist) famous chains or from a local mom-and-pop shop, Philly natives and newcomers alike can enjoy this Philadelphia delicacy in celebration of this holiday.

Annie Stockmal is a graduate student in the Communication Department and graduate assistant in Falvey Library.

My case for DCDE’s spring exhibit, “Poetic License: Seven Curators’ Poetry Selections from Distinctive Collections” focuses on American dialect poetry in our collections. Dialect poetry is a style of writing that attempts to replicate the sound and speech patterns of people from a particular region or social group. It has often been regarded with mixed feelings – enjoying immense popularity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but existing mostly outside of the literary canon. When we read these depictions of speech today our initial reaction is likely one of cringe-inducing disgust or dismissal. Yet these examples can be used by students, faculty, and researchers to think critically and open discourse on topics such as racism, stereotypes and bias, the immigrant experience (historically, as well as today), cultural appropriation and authenticity, and to promote cultural awareness and sensitivity.

The case highlights three particular poets writing in this style:

T. A. (Thomas Augustine) Daly, 1871-1948:

Daly attended Villanova College from 1880-1887 and went on to enjoy a prolific career in publishing and newspapers. Villanova holds several copies of his volumes, which sold widely, reaching numerous editions. Daly was best known for his humorous verse written primarily in Italian-American or Irish-American dialect. Critics and reviews in his day generally noted his portrayals of immigrant characters as distinguished by sympathy and understanding rather than as harmful or offensive.

Learn more about T.A. Daly in a previous online exhibit here: https://exhibits.library.villanova.edu/t-a-daly

Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1872-1906:

During his short life, Paul Laurence Dunbar published twelve books of poetry, four novels, and four books of short stories. He is regarded as one of the first African American literary figures to gain national and international recognition. Briefly married to Alice Moore Dunbar Nelson (1874-1935), a fellow writer later known for her activism in women’s rights, he died of tuberculosis at age thirty-three.

To a largely white audience, Dunbar’s dialect poetry, written in a style associated with Black speech of the antebellum American South, was seen as “authentic,” though he was born and educated in Dayton, Ohio. For Dunbar, this style of dialect was no more natural than it was for other popular writers also known for the style, such as Mark Twain, Joel Chandler Harris, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Distinctive Collections holds several copies of illustrated volumes of Dunbar’s poetry first published by Dodd, Mead, and Co. between 1899 and 1904. These lovely editions are illustrated with photographs by the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (now Hampton University) Camera Club, with book cover and interior decorations by noted book designers Alice Morse (1863-1961) and Margaret Armstrong (1867-1944).

Dunbar’s poem “Sympathy,” from Lyrics of the Hearthside (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1899) later inspired the title to Maya Angelou’s autobiography, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings (1969).

James Whitcomb Riley, 1849-1916:

One of the most well-known and best-selling poets at the time of dialect poetry’s height of popularity was James Whitcomb Riley. Known as the “National Poet,” the “Hoosier Poet,” or “Children’s Poet,” for his Indiana-based Midwest regional dialect, his homespun poetry was often humorous and sentimental. Riley began his career writing for newspapers and gained fame performing and reading his poetry on traveling public speaking circuits. Two of his best loved poems are “The Raggedy Man” and “Little Orphant Annie.”

Be sure to stop by Falvey’s first floor to see the entire exhibit in person this spring and watch the blog for most posts from the curators!

Rebecca Oviedo is Distinctive Collections Archivist at Falvey Memorial Library.

A Landscape
Designed by Felix O.C. Darley, engraved by William .H. Dougal.

This is Mike Sgier, a Distinctive Collections Coordinator here at Falvey Library, and today I’m debuting a new blog series titled The Printed Image, exploring illustrated and pictorial works from Falvey Library’s Distinctive Collections. For this inaugural post, I’m highlighting Illustrated Poems by Lydia Howard Sigourney, with illustrations designed by Felix O.C. Darley.

Published in 1849 by Philadelphia-based Carey and Hart, Illustrated Poems is a collection of over 100 of Sigourney’s poems, serving as a survey of her renowned career up to that the time. Darley, still in the early years of his illustration career, contributed 14 illustrations to the book. Shortly before publication, Darley would move from Philadelphia to New York where his career would continue to thrive, securing his status as a pioneer in American illustration.

Sigourney’s poems selected for this book refer to historical and biblical figures along with more everyday concerns in early 19th century American life. It is these more commonplace subjects that appear most frequently in Darley’s illustrations, a mixture of romanticized environments, portraits, and scenes of daily life.

The Western Emigrant
Designed by Felix O.C. Darley, engraved by William H. Dougal.

Erin’s Daughter
Designed by Felix O.C. Darley, engraved by William Humphrys.

The Drooping Team
Designed by Felix O.C. Darley, engraved by James Smillie.

Detail from The Ancient Family Clock.
Designed by Felix O.C. Darley, engraved by William Humphrys.

Darley’s illustrations are tightly composed and highly detailed, with a clean and confident line. But these qualities must also be attributed to the engravers who played a critical role in the creation of these illustrations. While Darley is given top billing as a designer, each illustration is credited with its own engraver. The engraver would cut the designs into metal with a tool called a burin, and the carved lines would then hold ink during printing. This process accounts for the sharp lines and rich tones that appear throughout the illustrations.

The Tomb
Designed by Felix O.C. Darley, engraved by George H. Cushman.

A frequent subject within Sigourney’s poems is death and mortality. This subject would account for one of the more unique illustrations in the book, titled The Tomb. While the illustration appears at first glance to be a landscape, a deeper mystery pervades the surroundings, with buttresses carved into stone and a marble tomb sinking into the ground, visited by a robed figure. These details complement the haunting tone of Sigourney’s poem, a mediation upon the solitary nature of death.

Illustrated Poems may be viewed in Falvey Library’s Rare Book Room during walk-in hours (Wednesdays 9:30-11:30am and Thursdays 2-4pm) or by appointment. The book may also be viewed online through the Falvey Library catalog or the Internet Archive.

Curious to know more about the engraving process? This blog post from the Metropolitan Museum of Art shows a step-by-step guide to this printmaking process.

Finally, to see more poetry selections from Distinctive Collections, please visit the new library exhibit Poetic License, which opens Monday, February 6 on Falvey Library’s first floor.

By Ethan Shea

Everyone knows the saying, “April showers bring May flowers,” but how true is it? According to this weather blog, the saying actually comes from England. Although April is usually a fairly wet month, it isn’t always the rainiest. June and July often compete for the top spot in both the United States and United Kingdom.

All I know is that as I’m writing this blog and looking at the weather forecast, April looks like it’s off to a fairly damp start. To fit the somber mood that comes with this wet weather, I’ve compiled some of rain’s most famous appearances in literature. Everyone knows the best way to read is beside a rain-soaked window, so feel free to check out these recs and read them at your leisure!

Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer

Perhaps the most famous invocation of rain is the opening of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The poem even directly calls upon April specifically as a month that brings rain. In direct contrast to Chaucer, over five centuries later, T.S. Eliot would begin his magnum opus, The Waste Land, with the phrase: “April is the cruelest month,” showing how incredibly deep Chaucer’s influence runs.

“The Rainy Day” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

This somewhat depressing poem is worth reading when you’re down in the dumps on a rainy day. The most famous line from this poem is: “Into each life some rain must fall.” A quote worth remembering when bad weather and anything else going on in your life makes everything seem overwhelming. A little rain just makes the sun feel brighter afterwards!

“April Rain Song” – Langston Hughes

Hughes makes a refreshing change of pace here as he declares his love for the rain with this poem. His ability to find beauty in pools of rain on the sidewalk and enjoy the musicality of raindrops on his roof is inspiring. You just have to respect the ability to take something that may seem bad and turn it into something beautiful.

“Rain Poem” – Emily Dickinson

Although it is referred to as “Fascicle Thirty-Eight” in this collection, “Rain Poem” is another piece that seems not to mind the wet weather. While placing all these poets aside one another, it’s fascinating to see how nature inspires them in such dramatically different ways even when under the same damp conditions.

Hopefully you enjoy these pieces and are inspired to search for some more, as there is an innumerable number of literary works inspired by the rain. Moreover, April just so happens to be National Poetry Month! Not that you needed another reason to indulge in some classic verses.

Happy reading, and stay dry out there…or don’t!

Ethan Shea is a first-year English Graduate Student and Graduate Assistant at Falvey Memorial Library.

The lineup for the 2022 Villanova University Literary Festival is listed below. All events will take place at 7 p.m. in Falvey Memorial Library’s Speakers’ Corner, except for the Emma Dabiri talk, which will take place in the Presidents’ Lounge, Connelly Center. These ACS-approved events, co-sponsored by the English Department, the Creative Writing Program, Global Interdisciplinary Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, the Center for Irish Studies, and Falvey Memorial Library, are free and open to the public.

JERICHO BROWN

 Thursday, Jan. 27, at 7 p.m., in Falvey Memorial Library’s Speakers’ Corner

Jericho Brown is author of the The Tradition (Copper Canyon 2019), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please (New Issues 2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (Copper Canyon 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition, won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University.

For more information on Brown, please visit his website: https://www.jerichobrown.com/

Livestream link: https://vums-web.villanova.edu/Mediasite/Play/d7c24d1b0ab3427da371d78e422ed08b1d

EMMA DABIRI

 Tuesday, March 15, at 7 p.m., in the Presidents’ Lounge, Connelly Center

Emma Dabiri, the 2022 Charles A. Heimbold Jr. Chair in Irish Studies, is an Irish writer, academic, BBC broadcaster, and social media influencer who has written two very successful non-fiction books: Twisted (published as Don’t Touch My Hair in Ireland) and What White People Can Do Next. Her work in the arts, fashion, and the media are complemented by her academic teaching and research in African Studies and Visual Sociology. She is currently completing her PhD at Goldsmiths University, London.

For more information on Dabiri, please visit her website: https://www.kbjmanagement.co.uk/emma-dabiri

CAMILLE DUNGY

 Tuesday, March 29, at 7 p.m., in Falvey Memorial Library’s Speakers’ Corner

Camille T. Dungy’s debut collection of personal essays is Guidebook to Relative Strangers (W. W. Norton, 2017), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is also the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Trophic Cascade (Wesleyan UP, 2017), winner of the Colorado Book Award. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019. She is a professor in the English department at Colorado State University.

Livestream link: https://vums-web.villanova.edu/Mediasite/Play/4086caf5425347eeafc1daac395a75c31d

TIPHANIE YANIQUE

Thursday, April 21, at 7 p.m., in Falvey Memorial Library’s Speakers’ Corner

Tiphanie Yanique is a novelist, poet, essayist, and short story writer. She is the author of the poetry collection, Wife, which won the 2016 Bocas Prize in  Caribbean poetry and the United Kingdom’s 2016 Forward/Felix Dennis Prize for a First Collection. Tiphanie is also the author of the novel, Land of Love and Drowning, which won the 2014 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Award from the Center for Fiction, the Phillis Wheatley Award for Pan-African Literature, and the American Academy of Arts   and Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award, and was listed by NPR as one of the Best Books of 2014. Land of Love and Drowning was also a finalist for the Orion Award in Environmental Literature and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. She is a tenured associate professor at Emory University.

For more information on Yanique, please visit her website: https://www.tiphanieyanique.com/bio

Livestream link: https://vums-web.villanova.edu/Mediasite/Play/a70b3ecc7e914b2f846dc273fc4e1ce01d

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Memorial Library.

By Jenna Renaud

Photo courtesy of the New York Times / Chester Higgins Jr.

The U.S. Mint has announced that on Monday, Jan. 10 they began shipping quarters featuring poet Maya Angelou.  

This quarter represents the first in the American Women Quarters Program. This Mint program will take place over four years and includes issuing five quarters a year to honor women in fields, including women’s suffrage, Civil Rights, abolition, government, humanities, science, and the arts.  

Women to be featured in 2022 include physicist and first woman astronaut Sally Ride; Wilma Mankiller, the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation; Nina Otero-Warren, a leader in New Mexico’s suffrage movement and the first female superintendent of Santa Fe public schools; and Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood. 

Photo courtesy of the Washington Post.

Women have previously been featured on coins, although never the quarter. In 2017 the Mint introduced a commemorative gold coin featuring Lady Liberty as a Black woman. Suffragist Susan B. Anthony was the first to be featured on a coin in circulation when silver dollars were released with her image in 1979. Other women featured on currency include writer and activist for the disabled Helen Keller and Sacagawea, the Shoshone woman who helped Lewis and Clark across the plains.

Author, poet, and Civil Rights activist, Angelou rose to prominence with the publication of her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in 1969. She was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2010 by President Barack Obama. Although having passed away in 2014 at the age of 86, Angelou’s impact and writings live on.

The quarter design depicts Angelou with outstretched arms and was created by Emily Damstra, a designer, and Craig A. Campbell, a medallic artist. Behind her is a bird in flight and a rising sun. Both of these selected images are inspired by her poetry and the way she lived her life. 

Below we have compiled a list of some of Maya Angelou’s most important and impactful pieces of work, all of which are available in Falvey’s collection: 

• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) 
• The Complete Poetry (2015) 
• Phenomenal Women: Four Poems Celebrating Women (1994) 
• The Heart of a Women (1981) 
• On the Pulse of Morning (1993) 
• A Song Flung Up to Heaven (2002) 

Click here to find a full list of Falvey’s collection of Maya Angelou pieces and make sure you are on the lookout for these quarters over the next four years. 

Jenna Renaud is a Graduate Assistant in Falvey Memorial Library and a Graduate Student in the Communication Department.

By Ethan Shea

“Delafield’s Ground-Warbler” by John James Audubon

Flyer for “A Bird Came Down the Walk: A Creative Writing Workshop”

On Nov. 4, Falvey Library will be co-sponsoring two events that explore the artistic potential of birds and birdwatching. A writing workshop with Nathalie Anderson, a Philadelphia poet who recently retired from Swarthmore College, will give attendees opportunities to consider the various ways of putting visual observations of these spirited creatures into words. This exercise will be supplemented by discussions of pictures and videos of birds.

A second event will celebrate the publication of a book titled Birds of North America. This book will be displayed at The Drawing Room in Philadelphia with images by Susan Hagen and poems by Nathalie Anderson and Lisa Sewell, who will all attend the event.

The first event will take place at 4 p.m. in SAC 300, and the second will occur at 6 p.m. in Falvey Library, room 205. Both will take place on Nov. 4.

To prepare for the upcoming festivities, I’ve provided a few links for those who want to dig deeper into the intersections of birds and art. In addition to literature regarding birds and bird-concerned artists, I’ve found some images of birds, all available in Villanova’s Digital Library, that will get your creative juices flowing.

Dickinson Electronic Archives

These archives give curious readers the opportunity to explore anything and everything about Emily Dickinson. Her poem A Bird, came down the Walk is one of the most famous examples of bird-inspired poetry. In fact, the upcoming writing workshop is named after this piece of literature!

Flyer for “Birds of North America: A Reading and Artists Talk”

The Raven

This poem by Edgar Allan Poe is another well known example of bird poetry. Published in 1845, The Raven is an incredibly eerie piece, giving a very different impression of bird imagery than Emily Dickinson.

Birds in Medieval English Poetry

Michael Warren’s book, Birds in Medieval English Poetry, takes readers back to the Medieval Ages in his discussion of birds as symbols in Medieval texts. The relationship between the poems Warren studies and the natural world is highly debated in this piece.

Here is a list of pictures and paintings of birds available for viewing in Falvey’s Digital Library:

• Delafield’s Ground-Warbler
• Great Auk
• Lapland Lark Bunting
• Peacock

Susan Hagen’s website is another great resource for bird images. I encourage you to check it out!

Ethan Shea is a first-year English Graduate Student at Villanova University and Graduate Assistant at Falvey Memorial Library.

Our latest online exhibit, “Rediscovering T. A. Daly: Immigrant Voices in Poetry,” is now available, just as April’s National Poetry Month draws to a close. The exhibit explores the life and works of Thomas Augustine Daly (1871-1948), a native and lifelong Philadelphian; an Irish-American and a Catholic; a journalist, poet, and prolific author; and an early Villanova University alumnus.

This exhibit brings together newly digitized materials from Falvey Memorial Library’s collections, including Daly’s notebooks from his Villanova days (1880-1887), a scrapbook documenting his early career, and the majority of his published books.

These items are also available in the Digital Library, while the exhibit provides context around the poetry—written mainly in Italian-American and Irish-American dialect—for which he was best known. His collective works give us glimpses into his own life deeply rooted in Philadelphia’s Irish and Catholic communities, with his poetry strongly themed around a broader American identity through the everyday characters he created.

Visit the online exhibit here: https://exhibits.library.villanova.edu/t-a-daly.

Photograph, Thomas A. Daly (with wife and children), c. 1910. Villanova Photograph Collection. Villanova University Archives, Villanova University. Thomas Daly and Ann “Nannie” Barrett had eight children: Leonard (b. 1897), John (b. 1899), Tom Jr. (b. 1901), Anne (Nancy) Elizabeth (b. 1903), Stephen (b. 1904), Brenda (1907-1914), Frederic (b. 1908), and Frances Joan (b. 1914).

Rebecca Oviedo is Distinctive Collections Librarian/Archivist at Falvey Memorial Library.

Art courtesy of Joanne Quinn, Director of Communication and Marketing

All Hallows

Learn more about Louise Glück:

• Dictionary of Literary Biography’s Entry
  Whitfill, Patrick. “Louise Glück (22 April 1943-).” Twenty-First-Century American Poets, Third Series, edited by John Cusatis, vol. 380, Gale, 2017, pp. 146-159. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 380. Gale Literature: Dictionary of Literary Biography, Accessed 16 Oct. 2020.
• Falvey Memorial Library’s collected works by Glück and about Glück
• Reviews of her works
• Colm Tóibín with Louise Glück: Clytemnestra Revisited Video (New York Public Library)
• A recent profile (The New Yorker)
• Further poetry resources (Falvey’s English subject guide)

Text by Kallie Stahl, Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Memorial Library. Links curated by Sarah Wingo, MA, MSI, the Liaison Librarian for English Lit, Theatre, and Romance Languages.

Celebrating National Poetry Month, Falvey Memorial Library staff shared some of their favorite poems.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all -And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

Balaenoptera—Joshua Bennett
Submitted by Kallie Stahl, Communication and Marketing Specialist 

Mortal City—Dar Williams
Submitted by Shawn Proctor, Marketing and Communication Program Manager