Look Again: Caroline Dorman and Elena Piscopia
Look Again: Portraits of Daring Women by Julie Lapping Rivera is an homage to exceptional, pioneering women working across centuries. In a series of hand-carved, woodcut and collage prints, Leverett-based artist Julie Rivera (American, b. 1956) highlights the lives and achievements of women who defied the status quo. Each print is accompanied by a poem, written specifically for the series, by local and international women poets.
Look Again is sponsored by the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts
The first woman employed by the U.S. Forestry Service in 1921, Caroline Dormon (1888-1971) was one of the most renowned forest conservationists and American naturalists of the 20th century. Known affectionately as “Miss Carrie,” Dormon campaigned for national and state policies recognizing the autonomy of Indigenous peoples; she also advocated for the protection of archaeological sites in Louisiana. According to Dormon, the preservation of natural resources, ecological systems, and the original inhabitants of the land were interrelated—as all could not thrive without each other.
The Longleaf Pine Woman
by Sharon Tracey
I have listened to the trees talk, later
than I longed. My ear was its own
stethoscope, I felt the pulse, I heard
the waters flow through xylem
in vertical rivers, emptying
into fireworks of deep-green
needles. Need grows deeper.
For so long, I’ve collected life
histories. I’ve walked the land
through Louisiana, parish to parish,
raised seedlings, felt the fire
of their roman candles. A longing
carried me as I toiled to save them.
It can take a long century to reach
the forest canopy where sprays
of needles watch the clouds
and stars. And no bed is finer
than a needled floor, no resting
place more welcoming, far
below the oval, open crowns.
Being resinous, pitch and gum
can save them from fire, and
skeletons of snag may recover.
But from the blade? For this I walked.
Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia (1646-1684) was one of the first women in the world to receive a degree from a university and the first to receive a Doctorate of Philosophy. A life-long student, Piscopia studied mathematics, astronomy, music, and theology. She was also a polyglot, speaking proficient English, French, Spanish, Arabic, and Hebrew. Upon her examination at the university by scholars, she was deemed to have knowledge far exceeding that necessary for a Doctorate. Today, Piscopia’s statue sits inside the University of Padua, where she represents life-long learning and excellence immortalized.
The Seven-Language Oracle Confesses
by Jennifer Martelli
All day, on the verge of my seventh language,
I break things: the gun metal globe, the spine
of Sappho’s translated fragments, which will not
exist for two hundred more years. She wrote:
In some future time, someone will think of you.
The stiff linen pages slice my fingertips. I leave
peonies of blood on all I touch. Yet, I’m glad
for this tongue. Oraculum Septilingue, they’ll call me.
Last night, I dreamt the collective dream of Venetians:
gold snakes and blood-red wombs etched into stone
columns of the university. The sultry air steaming off
the canal slithered into my maroon dreamscape. Someday,
I’ll be a crater on Venus. Oblate, devotee, on the verge
of love, you won’t even need a convex lens to see me.
About the Artist
Julie Rivera is inspired by the meditative practice of woodcut printmaking. She began her career in New York, working as a teaching artist with the Studio in a School Association, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Lincoln Center Institute. Rivera earned her MFA in Painting from Pratt Institute and her BFA in Printmaking from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship recipient in Drawing and received grants from the New York Foundation of the Arts, the National Endowment of the Arts, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Rivera is a Leverett-based artist. She teaches printmaking at Smith College and at Zea Mays Printmaking in Florence, MA.
About the Poet
Sharon Tracey is a poet and editor and author of three poetry books: Land Marks (Shanti Arts 2022), Chroma: Five Centuries of Women Artists (Shanti Arts), and What I Remember Most is Everything (All Caps Publishing). Her poems have appeared in Crab Creek Review, Terrain.org, Radar Poetry, The Ekphrastic Review, and elsewhere.
She previously worked as a director of research communications and interdisciplinary environmental initiatives at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and recently served on the board of Perugia Press, a publisher of women poets. She holds a Master’s degree in public policy from the University of California Berkeley.
About the Poet
Jennifer Martelli is author of the poetry collections The Queen of Queens (Bordighera Press, 2022) and My Tarantella (Bordighera Press, 2018). A Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow, she has won awards from the Italian American Studies Association and The Massachusetts Center for the Book. She is co-poetry editor for Mom Egg Review.
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