Books and other items of interest that arise

22nd October 2026

The History of the English Language  podcast by Kevin Stroud

https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/

This podcast is about half language and half history of the people. Try it; it is very engaging.

A Thousand Ships is a 2019 novel by Natalie Haynes which retells the mythology of the Trojan War from the perspective of the women, girls and goddesses involved. It was shortlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction.

Watercolor paintings of the insides of a strawberry and a blueberry.

WomenExplore Fall 2026 – “Find Out Who You Are & Do It on Purpose” (Dolly Parton)

All meetings are on ZOOM from 10:30 – 1:30 unless otherwise stated.

The Zoom link can be found in an email from MAS dated Tue, Sep 29, 5:58 AM

1. Sept. 17, in-person

2. Sept. 24, Woman-of-Agency, Dorothy Day, discussion leader Mary Rose

To prepare for the discussion please watch the PBS documentary Revolution of

the Heart.

https://www.pbs.org/show/revolution-heart-dorothy-day-story/

3. Oct. 01, Kate Bowler, stories of joy and beauty.

https://katebowler.com/

4. Oct. 08, Woman-of-Agency, Dolly Parton, led by ?

5. Oct. 15, AI – what are the challenges for us and how can we approach them?

6. Oct. 22, Woman-of-Agency, Mary Oliver, led by Lindsa

7. Oct. 29, Think about our title quote, “Find Out Who You Are & Do It on Purpose”.

What messages did we receive form parents, teachers, friends that helped us define

ourselves.

8. Nov. 05, post-election discussion

9. Nov. 12, Woman-of-Agency, Eleanor Roosevelt, led by Dorianne

10. Nov. 19, Re-cap and assessment of the fall sessions. What have we learned in our

discussions? How have the learnings affected us?

26S WomenExplore week 30th April. Song in poetry.

Two examples of poems.  Say them aloud and feel the beat.

The Song of the Cattle Hunters

Henry Kendall

1861

Exported from Wikisource on April 23, 2026

While the morning light beams on the fern-matted streams,

And the water-pools flash in its glow,

Down the ridges we fly, with a loud ringing cry,

Down the ridges and gullies below;

And the cattle we hunt they go racing in front,

With a roar in the distance like waves,

As the beat, and the beat, of our swift horses' feet

Start the Echoes away from their caves!

As the beat, and the beat,

Of our swift horses' feet,

Start the Echoes away from their caves!

Like a thundering shore that the billows ride o'er,

All the lowlands are filling with sound;

For swiftly we gain, where the herds on the plain,

Like a tempest, are tearing the ground:

And we'll follow them hard to the rails of the yard,

O'er the gulches and mountain tops grey,

Where the beat, and the beat, of our swift horses' feet,

Will die with the Echoes away!

Where the beat, and the beat,

Of our swift horses' feet,

Will die with the Echoes away!

Tarantella (1923)   by Hilaire Belloc

Do you remember an Inn,

Miranda?

Do you remember an Inn?

And the tedding and the spreading

Of the straw for a bedding,

And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,

And the wine that tasted of the tar?

And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers

(Under the vine of the dark verandah)?

Do you remember an Inn, Miranda,

Do you remember an Inn?

And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers

Who hadn’t got a penny,

And who weren’t paying any,

And the hammer at the doors and the din?

And the hip! Hop! Hap!

Of the clap

Of the hands to the twirl and the swirl

Of the girl gone chancing,

Glancing,

Dancing,

Backing and advancing,

Snapping of the clapper to the spin

Out and in–

And the ting, tong, tang of the guitar!

Do you remember an Inn,

Miranda?

Do you remember an Inn?

Never more;

Miranda,

Never more.

Only the high peaks hoar:

And Aragon a torrent at the door.

No sound

In the walls of the halls where falls

The tread

Of the feet of the dead to the ground,

No sound:

But the boom

Of the far waterfall like doom.

Downloaded from Wikipedia                                    El Jaleo         

Artist	John Singer Sargent
Year	1882
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	237 cm × 352 cm (93 in × 138 in)
Location	Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

   

Sargent's painting Capri (1878) depicts Rosina Ferrara dancing the tarantella, and anticipates the flamenco of El Jaleo.^[6] Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

Downloaded from Wikipedia

26S WomenExplore. Week 9th April. Sharing some of our favorite poems

— This week we explored a new format of interspersing poetry reading with personal sharing.  It worked very well.

We began with two haikus from Susan Nulsen:

1. On getting out of bed in the morning.

 

    No, no, no, no, no,

    No, no, no, no, no, no, no,

    No, no, no, no, no.

2. The haiku by Issa from Elaine Fisher's gravestone.

   

A lovely thing to 

see, through the paper window's 

hole, the Galaxy.

Issa

The poem "I dare you" by Dorianne Laux.    (Click to see.)

Barb Villandry read "On the pulse of morning" by Maya Angelou.

A Rock, A River, A Tree

Hosts to species long since departed,   

Marked the mastodon,

The dinosaur, who left dried tokens   

Of their sojourn here

On our planet floor,

Any broad alarm of their hastening doom   

Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,   

Come, you may stand upon my

Back and face your distant destiny,

But seek no haven in my shadow,

I will give you no hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than

The angels, have crouched too long in   

The bruising darkness

Have lain too long

Facedown in ignorance,

Your mouths spilling words

Armed for slaughter.

The Rock cries out to us today,   

You may stand upon me,   

But do not hide your face.

...

"I wandered lonely as a cloud" by William Wordsworth  from Lindsa Vallee:

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

 

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

 

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

 

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

 

Susan Nulsen's paintings used in 2023 calendar

Cover

 

A work in progress: Murchison River Gorge
from a photograph by Leonie Nulsen

January

Huron Avenue in January,
my first original painting in Ann Wiseman's class

February

My life journey in the style of a journey stone

March

Still life with a silver tin

April

Calla lily drawn in a pastel workshop

May

A still life with apples done in pen and watercolor crayons,
 in a class with Ann Wiseman

June

A day lily from our back porch

July

Adams House and Harvard Lampoon Building,
view from Mt Auburn St.

August

Abel Tasman National Park, New Zealand
painted in online class with Mike Southern

September

Juniper, Cheryl Suchors' dog

October

Looking at Sandy Pond through trees
at De Cordova Sculpture Park,
experimenting with a different style

November

Weeks Footbridge from a HSSPA photograph

December

Smith's Beach on Christmas Day 2019