Poetry on the Peaks

Mt. Battie

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat — the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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Mt. Battie is located in Camden Hills State Park in Camden, Maine. The summit offers sweeping views of Camden, Penobscot Bay, and surrounding islands. On the entire Atlantic coastline there are only two places where the mountains meet the sea - one is in Camden and the other Mt. Desert, both in Maine. Since 1840 it has been possible to drive to the summit of Mt. Battie, but it is also possible to take the half mile hiking trail up, a hike that takes about 45 minutes. There is magnificent foliage color in the Fall. The view from the summit was said to have inspired Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem "Renascence" which opens "All I could see from where I stood / Was three long mountains and a wood; / I turned and looked the other way, / And saw three islands in a bay." Camden State park is the home of foxes, deer, songbirds, etc., and offers 30 miles of hiking trails and a 107 site camping area with limited access. One of the trails leads to the summit of Megunticook Mountain, the highest in the area at 1,380 feet.

Climb Date: October 10, 2002
The reading on Mt. Battie was organized by Rhoda Waller

Rhoda Waller is a poet and storyteller who lives in New York City and on a mountaintop in Freedom, Maine. Listed with the Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers, she has published widely, and has taught poetry through New York State Poets-in-the-Schools, the Central Park Conservancy, and at universities, libraries, senior centers and other public forums. She holds a Master's degree in Comparative Literature, and is Founding President of Timelines Community Inc., a not-for-profit organization celebrating the wisdom and creativity of elders. She publishes Traces , a journal of elderwriting.

Unity College "America's Environmental College" is a small independent liberal arts college founded in 1965, located in the town of Unity, Maine. With a student body of approximately 500, it offers baccalaureate and associate degrees designed to educate students for professional preparation in fields of environmental science, natural resource management, wilderness-based outdoor recreation leadership, and related fields. Unity College, Unity, Maine 04988. 207-948-3131.www.unity.edu.

Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892-1950 was born in Rockland, Maine and raised in Camden, Maine. In 1912 she entered her poem "Renascence" in a contest, won publication in The Lyric Year and was offered a scholarship to Vassar. In the 1920s she lived a bohemian life in Greenwich Village, and acted with the Provincetown Players. She was the first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Among her books: Renascence 1917, A Few Figs From Thistles 1920, The Harp Weaver 1923 (Pulitzer Prize) The Buck in the Snow 1928, Fatal Interview 1931, a sonnet sequence, Wine from these Grapes, 1934, Huntsman, What Quarry? She wrote three verse plays and the libretto for Deems Taylor's opera The King's Henchman 1927,which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She married Eugene Boissevain in 1923. In 1927 she wrote and published "Justice Denied in Massachusetts" (New York Times 22 Aug. 1927) about the notorious Sacco-Vanzetti case. She was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1929) and the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1940).