Settling In is the story of Windham, Maine's early years in poetic verse. Chute has researched the historical characters and gives them life, feelings and words in true historical context.
About the Author
Robert M. Chute is a native of Naples, Maine and was educated, according to Chute, with varying degrees of success, at Fryeburg Academy, the University of Maine, and Johns Hopkins University. He served in the U.S. Air Force in WWII, in the Aviation Physiology Unit of a Proving Ground Command. He joined the Bates College teaching staff as Chairman of the Biology Department in 1962. Wearing his scientific hat, he wrote Introduction to Biology and Environmental Insight both published by Harper and Row. Always aware of being a steward of our earth, lakes and trees, Chute was instrumental in the formation of COLA, The Congress of Lake Associations, dedicated to the study and protection of Maine lakes. He also served as chair of a state commission concerned with genetic modification of agricultural products. During the 1960s he produced and edited a mimeograph poetry magazine, The Small Pond. Research in and Professing of Biology supported his poetry habit until retirement from Bates College in 1993. He received the Rhine Humanities Council chapbook award for Samuel Sewall Sails for Home and the Beloit Poetry Journal’s Chad Walsh Award for the poem, “Heat Wave in Concord.” Chute was awarded the 2011 Distinguished Achievement Award by the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Chute ran as an independent protest candidate for the U. S. House during the Vietnam War and is an active supporter of Veterans for Peace.
Reviews
"Poet Robert M. Chute conjures a remarkable community of men and women who make up the cycle of Windham (New Marblehead), Maine history, from the crossing of the Atlantic to the walking of boundaries, clearing of land, settling of families, holding against all challenges and eventually sending a generation to the killing fields of the Civil War. His short,strong, unpretentious poems reveal such personalities as Sea Fair Mayberry, "born between Old Ireland/and New England..." Ebenezer Hawkes who dreamed of dams; Chief Polin who fought to keep the rivers free and was killed; the former slave Lonnon Rhode who died fighting in the American Revolution. Chute has given us, not only a beautiful book of poetry but a unique and stunning town history."
—William David Barry, Historian,co-author Of Tate House:Crown of the Mine Mast Trade, Pyrrhus Venture and cultural gadfly.
About the Author
Robert M. Chute is a native of Naples, Maine and was educated, according to Chute, with varying degrees of success, at Fryeburg Academy, the University of Maine, and Johns Hopkins University. He served in the U.S. Air Force in WWII, in the Aviation Physiology Unit of a Proving Ground Command. He joined the Bates College teaching staff as Chairman of the Biology Department in 1962. Wearing his scientific hat, he wrote Introduction to Biology and Environmental Insight both published by Harper and Row. Always aware of being a steward of our earth, lakes and trees, Chute was instrumental in the formation of COLA, The Congress of Lake Associations, dedicated to the study and protection of Maine lakes. He also served as chair of a state commission concerned with genetic modification of agricultural products. During the 1960s he produced and edited a mimeograph poetry magazine, The Small Pond. Research in and Professing of Biology supported his poetry habit until retirement from Bates College in 1993. He received the Rhine Humanities Council chapbook award for Samuel Sewall Sails for Home and the Beloit Poetry Journal’s Chad Walsh Award for the poem, “Heat Wave in Concord.” Chute was awarded the 2011 Distinguished Achievement Award by the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Chute ran as an independent protest candidate for the U. S. House during the Vietnam War and is an active supporter of Veterans for Peace.
Reviews
"Poet Robert M. Chute conjures a remarkable community of men and women who make up the cycle of Windham (New Marblehead), Maine history, from the crossing of the Atlantic to the walking of boundaries, clearing of land, settling of families, holding against all challenges and eventually sending a generation to the killing fields of the Civil War. His short,strong, unpretentious poems reveal such personalities as Sea Fair Mayberry, "born between Old Ireland/and New England..." Ebenezer Hawkes who dreamed of dams; Chief Polin who fought to keep the rivers free and was killed; the former slave Lonnon Rhode who died fighting in the American Revolution. Chute has given us, not only a beautiful book of poetry but a unique and stunning town history."
—William David Barry, Historian,co-author Of Tate House:Crown of the Mine Mast Trade, Pyrrhus Venture and cultural gadfly.
