An exhibit of baskets from around the world, both utilitarian and art objects, will be on display in USM’s Art Gallery on the Gorham campus from Thursday, January 27, through Saturday, March 12. The exhibit is curated by basket artist, educator, and curator Carol Grant Hart of Salisbury, Conn.

The first time I went to Geno’s–the basement bar next to Margarita’s, on Brown Street in Portland–it was about a year ago and the place was packed. I’d been around poets before, of course, but I’d never been around this breed of poets. Mad poets. Poets with wild hair and wilder eyes, poets with rhythm, poets with wit, poets with questionable hygiene, poets whose words were inspired by voices the rest of us didn’t hear.

rling and suede encased feet in the store’s mirror. I hadn’t meant to try them on. I had in fact entered the store in search of my yearly winter boot: black, leather and with a thin heel, the heel and toe shape differing slightly depending on the season. Perhaps not a practical shoe choice for Maine’s snowy winters, but it had worked just fine for the last three years and I didn’t see any reason to change now.

I am a reformed junkie. A spa junkie, that is. The term “spa junkie” refers to the women and sometimes men who are nearly addicted to spas and will frequent them as much as humanly (or monetarily) possible. And I, admittedly, was one of them.

I received my first professional massage at age 9 because of a back problem.

An exhibit of baskets from around the world, both utilitarian and art objects, will be on display in USM’s Art Gallery on the Gorham campus from Thursday, January 27, through Saturday, March 12. The exhibit is curated by basket artist, educator, and curator Carol Grant Hart of Salisbury, Connecticut and Art Gallery Director Carolyn Eyler.

It’s Thursday night, about six hours after my deadline for this article. In an overheated classroom in Bailey Hall on the Gorham campus, I’m watching a group of actors find ways to externalize their psyches on cue. This means that at any given moment, said actors may be making like airplanes, elephants, or horny old men.

The Department of English is hiring a new poet. To that end, they are bringing to campus two candidates within the next two weeks.

The first was be Brian Henry, editor of “Verse”, author (most recently) of “Astronaut”, and former Director of Creative Writing at the University of Georgia.

This year, USM has not one but count ’em, two shows traveling to the Kennedy Center American College Theater Regional Festival. “The Laramie Project” and “November/December” have been chosen as two out of only six productions to compete in the Region 1 division of the annual festival, which includes colleges from throughout the New England states.