“We now have access, increasingly, to more and more cultures across the globe, and the result is that restlessness has gone global,” writes Pico Iyer in The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. This quote begins Adrie Kusserow’s new book of poetry, Refuge, and aptly so. That’s not only because the collection thrives on that very access to multiple cultures, or because a few poems therein discuss Tibetan Buddhism, but because Refuge is itself a restless book. ... Read more

The two most recent collections by Vermont poets David Huddle and Neil Shepard — Blacksnake at the Family Reunion and Vermont Exit Ramps, respectively — could hardly differ more in focus, yet something binds them together. One might say it’s their mutual desire to take the reader on a journey of sorts. Or maybe it’s their mutual appreciation for formal constraint. ... Read more

Doug Dows is a man of hobbies. He plays pool, he has driven across the country visiting small museums in small towns, he works on his old farmhouse in Panton, and, lately, he has been spending much of his time buying large boxes of books at auctions and sorting through them, looking for old volumes on Vermont history.... Read more

It’s a fact: As frigid air arrives, we northerners find ourselves daydreaming of lusher climes. Well, it’s not a proven fact, but we all do it, don’t we? Adding a new layer to our fantasies with each minute lost to shortening days, with visions of sandy beaches and tropical foliage dancing in our heads? Or perhaps of some human-animal hybrids vivisected by a mad scientist in exile.... Read more

There’s nothing like a stroll through the park. It’s refreshing to catch a whiff of the grass, feel the breeze in your hair, hear the birds chirp. But, admit it: Sometimes people get in the way. Though we may step into the park to enjoy nature, we can’t seem to get away from others. People are everywhere.... Read more

Every year, skiers and snowboarders from around the world congregate in Vermont to enjoy the state’s pristine mountain slopes. Many of them are drawn to Stowe — the “ski capital of the East” and home to Mt. Mansfield and the Stowe Mountain Resort. Perhaps no other town in the country is more steeped in winter-sports history. But, if not for the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum, much of that history might have stayed buried.... Read more

The colors we usually associate with this time of year are autumnal bursts of red, gold and orange. But what about hot pink? Fluorescent green? Black? These dominated one corner of the Burlington area last weekend at an event that brought people from as far away as Germany — people less interested in the foliage than in the unrivaled intensity of women slamming into each other on roller skates.... Read more

It’s time again for the Burlington Book Festival, which kicks off on the evening of Friday, September 21, and runs through Sunday, September 23. Since there’s no way you can take in all the readings and workshops happening in Burlington this weekend, we’ve spotlighted two outstanding writers and prepared a rough-and-ready guide. Find the whole schedule at burlingtonbookfestival.com.

Fiction Pick

A lesbian comes of age in the heartland ... Read more

I’ve considered myself a poet for a while now, but not the kind who writes so many poems. I’m the kind of poet who mostly thinks about writing poems; who has the occasional fleeting poetic thought, but almost never commits it to the page for fear that it might turn out less spectacular than I’d imagined. I’m holding off on my masterpiece until I gain more “life experience.” A lot of people think that’s lazy, but Jorge Luis Borges said that the work of a poet never ends; that even our dreams are part of the work.... Read more