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Staff Essay Contest Winners Capture Life’s Joys

admin2023-09-28T16:32:33-04:00

Staff Essay Contest Winners Capture Life’s Joys Princeton Writes Program Director John Weeren with essay contest winners. From left to right: John Weeren, Colton Poore, Robyn Howard, Dianne Spatafore, and Derek Ziegler. Photo by David Kelly Crow. Written by Adrianne Da Ponte, Advancement Aug. 15, 2023 Four Princeton staff members have been honored for their writing in the ninth annual Princeton Writes essay contest. The 2022-2023 contest, which invited participants to share how they cultivate joy in their lives, inspired submissions from 55 staff members representing 43 academic and administrative units. An essay by Colton Poore, a communications [...]

Staff Essay Contest Winners Capture Life’s Joysadmin2023-09-28T16:32:33-04:00

Saying “No”

John Weeren2023-10-03T16:10:36-04:00

Saying "No" By John Weeren For many on our campus and beyond there is nothing easy about saying “no,” a word that can sometimes end a conversation, fracture a friendship, or raise a ruckus. To quote the writer Kristin Wong, “Humans are social animals who thrive on reciprocity. It’s in our nature to be socially obliging, and the word no feels like a confrontation that threatens a potential bond.” Unfortunately, saying “no” is often inescapable, thanks to a host of intangible and practical considerations that preclude a positive response. Nothing, however, prevents us from conveying this monosyllable in a way that [...]

Saying “No”John Weeren2023-10-03T16:10:36-04:00

A Poem for You: September Tomatoes BY KARINA BOROWICZ

admin2023-05-08T15:01:37-04:00

September Tomatoes BY KARINA BOROWICZ The whiskey stink of rot has settled in the garden, and a burst of fruit flies rises when I touch the dying tomato plants. Still, the claws of tiny yellow blossoms flail in the air as I pull the vines up by the roots and toss them in the compost. It feels cruel. Something in me isn’t ready to let go of summer so easily. To destroy what I’ve carefully cultivated all these months. Those pale flowers might still have time to fruit. My great-grandmother sang with the girls of her village as they pulled the flax. [...]

A Poem for You: September Tomatoes BY KARINA BOROWICZadmin2023-05-08T15:01:37-04:00

A Poem for You: Diagnosis BY MEENA ALEXANDER

admin2023-05-08T14:49:47-04:00

Diagnosis BY MEENA ALEXANDER So how will it end? You want it straight? He looked me in the eye: You will lose weight, Become more and more tired. This kind will not enter your bones or brain. I stared at him, ravished. Could not pluck my eyes from his old man face. — Later the cuneiform earth Skimmed in snow Inviolate bones Torn ligament of language. A skeletal beauty Stars still uncover. — Come dawn a young doctor In reddening shirt sleeves, His voice quick, prickly undersong— No grandeur here, Just breath assuaging its own battery. Flash of sempiternal spring? A [...]

A Poem for You: Diagnosis BY MEENA ALEXANDERadmin2023-05-08T14:49:47-04:00

Word of the Week: synecdoche (sĭ-NĔK-də-kē)

Stephanie Whetstone2023-05-03T10:46:20-04:00

Word of the Week: synecdoche (sĭ-NĔK-də-kē) Definition (Noun) A figure of speech in which a more inclusive term is used for a less inclusive one or vice versa, as a whole for a part or a part for a whole. In Context "But if the convention didn't tell, it definitely showed: It was less an advertisement for Donald Trump than a perfect synecdoche for his entire ascent, with every element of the Trump phenomenon distilled into four strange days of drama." Ross Douthat, "The Donald Trump Show," The New York Times, July 23, 2016.

Word of the Week: synecdoche (sĭ-NĔK-də-kē)Stephanie Whetstone2023-05-03T10:46:20-04:00

Book of the Month: How to Stand Up to a Dictator (2022) by Maria Ressa

admin2023-05-22T16:12:11-04:00

How to Stand Up to a Dictator (2022) by Maria Ressa Critical Evaluation "What flows through this, Ressa’s memoir, is a strong ethical sense that journalism has to be grounded in honesty and truth-telling, in evidence and incontrovertible facts. An experienced and acclaimed journalist, Ressa made her career at CNN, setting up and running the Southeast Asia Bureau during the 1990s. Born in the Philippines then raised and educated in the US, she had returned after graduation and found her way into the media at an exciting time – colonialism had ended and democracy seemed possible. "Populist governments either cultivate pro-government [...]

Book of the Month: How to Stand Up to a Dictator (2022) by Maria Ressaadmin2023-05-22T16:12:11-04:00

A Poem for You: Evening Hawk BY ROBERT PENN WARREN

admin2023-05-08T13:04:38-04:00

Evening Hawk BY ROBERT PENN WARREN From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through Geometries and orchids that the sunset builds, Out of the peak's black angularity of shadow, riding The last tumultuous avalanche of Light above pines and the guttural gorge, The hawk comes. His wing Scythes down another day, his motion Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear The crashless fall of stalks of Time. The head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error. Look! Look! he is climbing the last light Who knows neither Time nor error, and under Whose eye, unforgiving, the [...]

A Poem for You: Evening Hawk BY ROBERT PENN WARRENadmin2023-05-08T13:04:38-04:00

Word of the Week: cordillera (kôr-dl-YÂR-ə)

Stephanie Whetstone2023-05-03T10:41:37-04:00

Word of the Week: cordillera (kôr-dl-YÂR-ə) Definition (Noun) A mountain chain or ridge, one of a series of parallel ridges; in plural applied originally by the Spanish to the parallel chains of the Andes in South America (las Cordilleras de los Andes), subsequently extended to the continuation of the same system through Central America and Mexico. In Context "A ride of seven hours across grassy plains covered with herbage, with patches of snow here and there, and ranges of hills with fine masses of rocks, forming a setting to the distant peaks of the cordillera, brought us to the post-house of [...]

Word of the Week: cordillera (kôr-dl-YÂR-ə)Stephanie Whetstone2023-05-03T10:41:37-04:00

A Poem for You: Every Job Has a First Day BY REBECCA GAYLE HOWELL

admin2023-05-08T13:00:44-04:00

Every Job Has a First Day BY REBECCA GAYLE HOWELL Slade was pulling minnows out of the dry river the day we met. Puddles, more or less, was what was left. But what could live wanted to and tried, treading narrow circles, a glide of brittle ﬁns. He wore those rubber boots, though the sun was an anvil, and very little wet; he smiled, I remember that, his nickel smile right at me, his ﬁngers letting fall the small ﬁsh muscles into a bag ﬁlled with yellow tap. I didn’t ask his name, or what it was he thought he was doing, [...]

A Poem for You: Every Job Has a First Day BY REBECCA GAYLE HOWELLadmin2023-05-08T13:00:44-04:00

Word of the Week: atavic (ĂT-ə-vĭk)

Stephanie Whetstone2023-05-03T10:39:13-04:00

Word of the Week: atavic (ĂT-ə-vĭk) Definition (Adjective) Of or pertaining to a remote ancestor. In Context "By the time of the Revolution there was sufficient recrudescence of feudalism to cause an atavic reversion to chivalric standards." Arthur W. Calhoun, The American Family in the Colonial Period, 1917.

Word of the Week: atavic (ĂT-ə-vĭk)Stephanie Whetstone2023-05-03T10:39:13-04:00

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