Dartmouth grads expected the usual boring commencement speaker. But Joseph Brodsky spoke about boredom itself, aka “your window on time.”

Nebraska stifled many a soul but Mari Sandoz "willed herself" to become its bard.

Heeding a poet's call, Andrew Carroll put poetry books in motel rooms, waiting rooms, hospitals, buses, airplanes. . .

Her books forgotten, her style only a memory, Zora Neale Hurston died a pauper’s death. And then. . .

Her first book made her the “true heir” to Thoreau. But Annie Dillard found new wonders to explore.