Jill McCorkle, MFA Faculty member in Fiction, recommends:

"Dorianne Laux’s 'Only As the Day is Long: New and Selected Poems' is a beauty. It is a chance to revisit her earlier masterful works as well as sink into the new poems under the umbrella of the title. These new poems focus on the life of Laux’s mother, a complex portrait that renders one unsure which way to run: into her arms or away from her sharp eyes. It is the journey of a daughter’s grief—the grief of her mother’s death coupled with a child’s longing for what was lost or missing in life. Along with sadness and loss, she finds grace and redemption and love, most notably in objects as simple as her mother’s slippers or her old colander: 'Bowl daylight fell through/ onto freckled faces, noon stars on the pavement…’

Clifford Thompson, MFA Faculty member in Creative Nonfiction, recommends THE CHANEYSVILLE INCIDENT.

Donald Hall, former United States poet laureate, and longtime Bennington Writing Seminars writer-in-residence, was deeply involved in our program since the very beginning.

The Donald Hall Scholarship for Poets provides full tuition support to the top #poetry candidate, as identified by Bennington’s admissions committee. Apply today for the term beginning in June.