On Saturday, May 17, the Wilson community welcomed back a familiar and beloved figure—President Emerita Gwendolyn Jensen, Ph.D., the institution’s 17th president. She returned not as an administrator, or reunion attendee, but as a guest poet.
After the All-Alum Luncheon, Jensen shared selections of her poetry—both recent and from earlier years—through readings delivered by her son, Don; her friend, Stephanie Levine; President Wes Fugate; and Jensen herself. More than a literary showcase, the event offered a glimpse into the creative journey of a woman who, after retiring from Wilson in 2001, found a new calling in verse.
“I had to do something,” Jensen told the audience with characteristic candor and wit. “And the only thing I could think of was something involved in writing.” That tentative beginning was sparked by a gift from her secretary—a book titled “How to Write a Poem.” Jensen recalled her early efforts: “They were terrible. And I submitted them. And of course, they were rejected. But then gradually over time, I got better. Practice, practice, practice. Rejection, rejection, rejection.”
Before the reading began, Jensen encouraged the audience to respond openly to her poetry, welcoming curiosity and conversation. “It’s really important that you speak up,” she said. “After each poem, say something—anything. Maybe ‘I didn’t understand a word of that,’ or ‘That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.’ Or something in between. But it should be a dialogue.”
Her reflections were as poetic as her work, revealing not just the evolution of a writer, but the determination of a woman committed to remaining engaged with the world. “The important thing is to be at it,” she said. “Not to just sit in a corner someplace.”
POEM 1
Jensen recalled arriving on a hot day to move into the president’s house—now The Hankey Center—and being struck by the sight of horses cooling off in the Conococheague with student riders on their backs. “I had never seen anything like this before at a college,” she said. That vivid first impression inspired her poem Night Riders, a reflection on life at a college where horses—and bonds between students and animals—were important.
NIGHT RIDERS
In the wake of sleep they walk to where the mill run
runs through gnarly grasses, to where tomorrow’s cows
will clamber down, making water dark and wide,
making muddy puddles, which like little fears,
draw upon a larger water. They cross to where
the horses stand, heads hung down, leaning in
upon themselves. What would it be to ride, to nuzzle
flat against a smooth warm neck? What would it be
to jump the fence, to go where air grows deep? Beyond them
lies a curve of farmhouse and its stubbled field,
and in the field a fox, high-tailed, alert, stands soft
among the brittle stalks, listening for a mouse,
aiming at a sound. And overhead there is
a filament of moon, the best of all the moons,
partial and complete, beyond the reach of ruin.
(Reprinted with permission.)
POEM 2
Upon retiring from Wilson, Jensen wrote Power, a poem that reflects her transition from leadership to a life beyond her presidency.
POWER
I serve porous circumstance,
and to this work I bring
a blaze of self, capacious,
thrashing, boundless self;
but like a pond whose silted
grass and bottom mud
cannot be seen, my surface
is smooth and clear.
If you look at me
you will see yourself.
I am mitered now,
caparisoned, like
a Sri Lankan elephant
who carries the true tooth—
the truth of the true Buddha—
ceremony becomes me;
I am the shape the trellis
chooses, trained tall,
patterned predictable,
like the deepest blue clematis.
How will it be to leave?
What name will I call myself?
Will I be eased by being nothing?
Someone else will drive
my car (once I killed
a pigeon with that car).
The work will still be done.
It is assignable.
What portion of me
is assignable?
(Reprinted with permission.)
Jensen was inducted into the Wilson College Author’s Hall of Fame in 2017. She is the author of the following books of poetry:
Birthright, 2011
As if Toward Beauty, 2015
Graceful Ghost, 2018
We Owe the Dead the Truth, 2023
