Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment Advance Access originally published online on October 21, 2009
Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 2009 16(4):837-847; doi:10.1093/isle/isp110
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Listening to the Music of the Ompompanoosuc
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The west branch of the Ompompanoosuc rises in the hills to the north of the village of Strafford, in Vermont's Orange County. For its first few miles, it pours down through the hills and its narrow valley like what we'd call in Missouri a crick, not a river. But once through Strafford (the home of Justin Morrill, the senator who wrote the legislation establishing land grant colleges), it moves out into a wide valley. Its course there is the usual meandering course of a river with plenty of space to move around in; the valley is open pasture land used now for the grazing of thoroughbred horses. Strafford is the center of Vermont's show horse industry, and every few years at Olympics time, some members of the US Equestrian team hale from there.
The Pompie, as the locals call it, is at its most pastoral as it flows past the