Scholar Day: An Origin Story
We grew up together as next-door neighbors in Idaho Falls, Idaho. When it comes to phrases like “old friends,” we’d like to emphasize that our first memory, the earliest moment in our lives that we can recall, involve the two of us playing together. We’d tie shirts around our necks as capes, sheath toy swords into the sides of our diapers, put our ball caps on backwards, and invent big worlds in our shared front yard. Each of our mothers became the first women we’d hear use cuss words other than our own mothers. And each of our fathers became the first men other than our own fathers we’d avoid if we were in trouble. When Eric learned how to spell his name, Alex ran home to brandish this new milestone to his mother, “Alex: E-R-I-C. Alex.”
(It wouldn’t be until we were 29-year-old men that we’d discover that on maps there is supposedly a natural water way, Crow Creek, that should have flowed right through our homes. The rest of our lives will be spent working on what that metaphor means.)
No few lives later, we found ourselves at the same university. At a cafe now gone, with some dear friends, we’d meet weekly to talk about any books and research and writing and movies and ideas that we had thoughts about. These sit-downs were discoveries: new authors, new directors, new worldviews, new awareness. After a while, with our tongues firmly against our cheeks, we began calling these weekly meetings “Scholar Day.” Eight years later, even while at graduate programs three time-zones away from each other, we are still going strong. We are still at play in our shared front yards, inventing big worlds.
And now that the Republican-led FCC has killed net neutrality, we figure it’s time to start a blog.
Scholar Daily Works
Alex R. Baldwin
2023
- Creative nonfiction essay in Red Wolf, a Multispecies Justice Publication out of Utah State University: “Families Gather in Protest of Families Torn Apart“
- Featured poetry reading with poet/writer/all-around polymath artist Sarah Ann Woodbury presented by Helicon West, a live reading series through Utah State University’s Department of English
- Helicon West joint interview with Sarah Ann Woodbury
- Letter to the Editor in the Post Register: “Bear World puts own interests above above Idahoans, animals“
2021
- Letter to the Editor in the Post Register (co-written w/Eric): “Reject gold exploration project in the Centennials“
2018
- Prose Poem in The American Journal of Poetry: “Can You Draw More Sheep for Ammon to Protect?“
Eric A. Follett
2021
- Letter to the Editor in the Post Register (co-written w/Alex): “Reject gold exploration project in the Centennials“
2020
- Double Quatrain Poem for the James Castle House Residency: “Middle Fork of the Payette, Crouch, Idaho“
- Double Quatrain Poem for the James Castle House Residency: “The Studio”
- Essay Written at the James Castle House Residency: “Grave Triplets: Bruno Schultz, Dimitri Shostakovich, James Castle Part II: The Storage Room of Others“
- Essay Written at the James Castle House Residency: “Grave Triplets: Bruno Schultz, Dimitri Shostakovich, James Castle Part I: Stored Things“
- Essay Written at the James Castle House Residency: “The Quantum Physics of Memory -OR- On What I have Unilaterally Decided Are the Self-Portraits of James Castle“
- Essay Written at the James Castle House Residency: “The Linguistics of Garden Valley“
- Part II of Interview with Nat Meade on the James Castle House Community Chats: “Empathy, Humanity, and the Deceptive Simplicity of Language“
- Part I of Interview with Nat Meade on the James Castle House Community Chats: “James Castle, World-Building, and the Vulnerability of Looking“
- Part II of Interview with Byron Folwell on the James Castle House Community Chats: “Basements, Solitude, and the Impossibility of an Empty Room“
- Part I of Interview with Byron Folwell on the James Castle House Community Chats: “James Castle, David Lynch, and Finding the Immensity in Small Places“
- Interview with Catie Young on the James Castle House Community Chats: “Idaho, Language, and Poetry as a Last Resort“
- Interview with Makenzi Dunstan on the James Castle House Community Chats: “Time, Cold Pizza, and the Apocalypse”
- Interview with Gemma Gaudette on Idaho Matters: “Boise-Based Writer and Linguist Gets Inspired by James Castle“
- Interview with Brooke Burton at Creators, Makers, & Doers: “Drawing Parallels: Eric Follett on Castle, Schultz, and Shostakovich“
- Poem Showcased at the James Castle House: “A Self“
- Artist-in-Residence at the James Castle House
2019
Exploratory Introduction for James Castle Residency: “Prolegomenon to a Residency”
2017
- Contrapuntal Poem in The American Journal of Poetry: “Roadside Geology of Idaho“