O Captain My Captain

Sometimes I come across books that are strangely appropriate. Fetching a book beside this one

I saw the title (Knee Deep in Blazing Snow) and thought it looked interesting. On closer inspection, it is poetry (yay) about growing up in Vermont (yay!) Considering I miss VT a lot since last summer, it was just the ticket.

Or, earlier in the day, in a box of pamphlets,

was a sweet, understated publication of Whitman's O Captain My Captain, a poem I have been mulling over recently after re-watching Dead Poets Society. I really, really like the sentiment. It is especially appropriate for the film to have the kids spout it just as Mr Keating is leaving. The end of an era; the death of Lincoln, the resignation of a teacher. Parallels.

And Dead Poets Society is set at a fictional school in, guess where?

Vermont.