Dartmouth poetry lecturer Rena Mosteirin ’05 read from her new collection “Disaster Tourism” to a group of community members at Still North Books & Bar on Oct. 14. Mosteirin, who owns used-books shop Left Bank Books, said she wrote the collection over the course of 20 years.
In her talk, she also said that she published the first two poems in Dartmouth’s literary journal “The Stonefence Review” when she was a student. Expanding beyond the concept of disaster, the poems explore themes of family, love, violence, ghosts, ancestors and the natural environment.
Her desire to use her voice against injustice came through in the lines of her opening poem, as Mosteirin recounted witnessing a Hawaiian woman’s murder by two police officers.
“No alarm went off for her and I realized my own vocal chords were cut,” she read, eliciting a collective breath from the audience.
Mosteirin dealt with lighter material in other poems. In “Pearls,” Mosteirin captures the sense of all-consuming love felt in the simplest of moments — in this case, with her husband, English professor James Dobson, in their kitchen.
“The mussels are full of pearls,” she read. “I swallow them thinking they are rocks. I am too in love with you to care.”
Many of her other poems reflected a deep love for the New Hampshire landscape. In his introduction to Mosteirin’s reading, editor and friend of Mosteirin, Dustin Schell, said she writes through “a lens refracted through the ice and melt of New Hampshire.” From “the clean green wastes” to “the dangerous heart of New Hampshire black iced birches,” Mosteirin threaded stark natural imagery through her poems.
Jiho Lee ’27 particularly “loved” hearing Mosteirin read “Empathy Cut with Fentanyl.”
“Her comparison of the loneliness and liminality of waiting in the emergency room with the unknown cold of winter was very powerful to me, especially having experienced the frigid Hanover winters,” Lee said.
The reading was followed by a lively reception with pastries and charcuterie that kept local bookworms, Dartmouth professors and friends lingering.
Still North’s founder Ally Levy ’11 described this community aspect as part of Still North’s “main goal” — to be “a place where people gather.”
“It’s always incredible to see a great turnout like this one because it speaks to how strong the Hanover community is,” Levy said.
Sophia Baran, a local Left Bank employee who started working at Left Bank Books with Mosteirin while she was in high school, attended Tuesday’s reading to support Mosteirin.
“I started picking up shifts again when she took over the store, Baran said. “It has been a dream, honestly.”
Mosteirin described her own “love” for this social aspect of Left Bank in an interview with The Dartmouth.
“I love setting up a tea kettle with fancy cups and saucers so I can meet with my students in store over a cup of tea,” Mosteirin said.
