humanities-magazine

english
Creating Connections
by Lee Ann Cox
Photograph by Sally McCay
It’s not that Alexandria Hall is a contradiction,
but she does, beneath her understated,
even shy demeanor, “contain multitudes,” says
her mentor, associate professor Major Jackson,
echoing Walt Whitman to explain the unexpected
range of talent and achievement from this
first-generation college student, a senior English
major from Vergennes. “Probably one of the
defining characteristics of an artist is that they
contain multiple selves,” says Jackson, a poet and
Guggenheim fellow. “Alexandria’s art becomes a
means by which she is able to constructively and
imaginatively engage those various sides.”
Hall—as poet—was selected for a 2014
Beinecke Scholarship last spring, one of the
most prestigious graduate fellowships in the
United States. One of only twenty Beinecke fellows
in the country, she will receive $34,000 in
funding which she plans to use toward a joint
MFA and Ph.D., continuing a
creative and scholarly life.
As a songwriter and musician
Hall has distinguished herself as
well, a Seven Days reviewer once
dubbing her “the queen of woozy
soul.” She took a year off from
her studies to tour the country,
including music festivals in New
York City and Austin, performing
her solo electro-pop under
the name tooth ache. (That’s
two words, lower case, period
at the end, though she says she’s
not as insistent about it as she
used to be.)
national
scholarship
competitions
Over the past five years
UVM students in the
humanities and social
sciences have won
sixteen Fulbright awards,
fifteen Gilman Scholarships,
four Boren Scholarships,
one Beinecke
Scholarship, and one
Udall Scholarship.
Within the multitudes that distinguish
Hall is also a facility for
foreign language. She calls herself
proficient in Spanish, which she
learned purely through immersion
during a study-abroad year
in Ecuador after high school. But
Hall’s passion is for German,
which she studied intensively at
the Middlebury Language School
this summer.
“I totally remember being startled
by some of the earliest poems
she brought to class,” Jackson says
of Hall’s work. “They felt layered
with various intelligences. I could
tell she was a reader but also that
she had life experiences that set her
work apart.”
Jackson notes a certain whimsy
in her work that he finds exciting
to see from a student. There’s
no doubt that she’s willing to
take risks. For Hall, the thread
between her pursuits is communication
and expression. “It’s just
trying to find some
way to get at that
because it’s really
difficult,” she says.
“It’s trying to get
to a place of understanding,
to create
connections.”
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