Dream Loaf
Welcome to Dream Loaf!
Dream Loaf free programming includes a curated selection of lectures and readings pulled from archives along with some live events.
The June events located near the bottom of this page will live on through the summer and beyond, and the August schedule of dreamy events will begin soon, August 12 to 22.
Registration is not required. Simply click on each program title below on the day of the event. Links to archived videos will become active the morning of the program (audio where noted); links to live events will become available at the time specified for that particular program. Closed captioning is provided for all events.
Thank you to Special Collections of the Davis Library at Middlebury College, with special thanks to Patrick Wallace for digitizing these files.
August Dream Loaf
Wednesday, August 12
Lecture, 2015
The world has ended more than once, in fire and in water and in blood. What happens to the work of individual writers and artists as they are swept up, or away, by history? How can events of almost unimaginable devastation result in radical new pathways for art?
Reading, 1997
format: audio
Thursday, August 13
Reading, 2019
Reading, 2000
Friday, August 14
4 p.m. EST
Saturday, August 15
Lecture, 2012
Reading, 2017
Sunday, August 16
Lecture, 2018
Poets tend to treat revision as a process of renunciation—the blue eyes of Alice Methfessel that feature in the original draft of Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” are lost forever, sacrificed on the altar of poetic necessity. But is there another, kinder way? This lecture considers another, generative model of revision—one in which the original and revised poem can coexist, can inhabit parallel dimensions. I’ll talk about revision as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division (pushing my mathematical skills to their very limits.) We’ll look at poems by Emily Dickinson, Ross Gay, CD Wright, Anne Carson, Jason Zuzga, Layli Longsoldier, and possibly others.
Reading, 2002
Monday, August 17
Lecture, 2010
Reading, 2015
Tuesday, August 18
4 p.m. EST
Wednesday, August 19
Lecture, 2017
Certain categories of writers/poets can seem both relevant and instructive. This lecture aims to consider the category of poets who go from being the objects of a literature to being its authors—often in a relatively short time. Such writers tend to be both disruptive and exemplary and this lecture considers the way they have set out to change the literary conversation.
Reading, 2000
format: audio
Thursday, August 20
Reading, 2016
Reading, 2005
Friday, August 21
Lecture, 2013
It’s common to think of desires and fears as the basic engines of plot, but often those desires and fears come to us second-hand, as requests—what other people want us to do, what they ask us for. Shakespeare’s plays often begin with such moments, as do many stories and novels and poems. Sometimes we lose ownership over our desires altogether, and that, too, sets stories into motion.
Reading, 2012
Saturday, August 22
Reading, 2019
Reading, 1976
format: audio
Reading, 1973
format: audio
June Dream Loaf
- Tuesday, June 9
- Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference
June 2020 Lecture by Bill McKibben, ““&Բ; - Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference
“,” with panelists Matthew Harrington, Larissa Kyzer, and Elizabeth Lowe, and an introduction by Jennifer Grotz, recorded live. - Wednesday, June 10
- Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference
2017 Lecture by Robin Wall Kimmerer, “?” - Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference
2017 Lecture by Christopher Merrill, “” (Adult Language) - Thursday, June 11
- Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference
2019 Lecture by J. Drew Lanham, “” - Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference
2019 Lecture by Emily Wilson, ““&Բ; - Bread Loaf Environmental and Bread Loaf Translators’ Conferences
2018 by Susan Bernofsky, Ginger Strand, and Mónica de la Torre - Friday, June 12
- Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference
2019 Lecture by Jennifer Chang, “” (Adult Language) - Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference
2017 Lecture by Idra Novey, “” - Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference
“” Reading with Eloisa Amezcua, Christian Gullette, Allison Grimaldi Donahue, and Laura Marris - Saturday, June 13
- Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference
2017 Lecture by Camille Dungy, “” - Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference
2018 Lecture by Bill Johnston, “” - Bread Loaf Environmental and Bread Loaf Translators’ Conferences
2018 by Megan Mayhew Bergman, Jennifer Grotz, and Luis Alberto Urrea - Sunday, June 14
- Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference
Helen Macdonald’s 2019 lecture “Bugs and Birds and Bewilderment: How I Learned to Write About Nature” is no longer available. - Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference
2019 Lecture by Edward Gauvin, “” - Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference
“” Reading, discussion, and Q&A with Emily Raboteau, hosted by Megan Mayhew Bergman