BJ Omanson

selected essays & reviews,
1994-2011


LITERARY ESSAYS



Pastoralism, how ancient?

(Sept 4, 2010)


The gardener poet:
Vita Sackville-West

(Aug 24, 2010)


Surveying the savanna:
thoughts on the archaic origins of pastoral

(May 8, 2010)


Rendering a ravaged landscape:
the steady eye of John Allan Wyeth

(Apr 6, 2010).


Artistry and authenticity
in the war sonnets of John Allan Wyeth

(May 27, 2012)


John Allan Wyeth:
Lost Poet of the Lost Generation
in The Best American Poetry blog.

(March 11 2012)


Meter, Misnomers and Misapprehensions:
a reply to Jonathan Holden's "The Old Formalism"

(Verse, Vol 10, No 3, 1994)


Breaking into the Dragon's Hoard:
the death of Modernism and the Unlocking of the Past

(Sparrow: A Yearbook of the Sonnet, Issue 61, 1994).




HISTORICAL ESSAYS: Virginia Frontier



How pioneers survived on the 18th century Virginia frontier

(Apr 21, 2011)


School of the Longhunter:
scenes from the encampment

(Apr 15, 2011).


The nature of historical legends:
a dialogue with historian John Boback

(Jan 11, 2011)


Daniel Boone and the boatload of ginseng:
further considerations

(Aug 31, 2010).


Corn, the staff of frontier life

(Aug 11, 2010)


At recent School of the Longhunter,
local farmers answer to beat of recruiter's drum

(Apr 26, 2010).


Daniel Boone and the boatload of ginseng

(Apr 3, 2010).


Fall comes to the old frontier

(Oct 13, 2009).


Ancestral wars

(June 3, 2009).


School of the Longhunter:
the native presence

(Apr 24, 2009).


Winter on the frontier:
what they lived in

(Feb 10, 2009)


Winter on the Virginia frontier

(Jan 21, 2009)


Fort attacked by Shawnee war party

(Oct 16, 2008)


Backwoods Virginians and the
"First Declaration of Independence"

(July 3, 2008).


Chief Logan and the birth of Pricketts Fort

(Apr 30, 2008)




HISTORICAL ESSAYS: First World War



Ghosts in the trenches:
soldier apparitions of World War I

(Apr 25, 2011)


Burial detail, Belleau Wood:
an old-timer is laid to rest

(Apr 3, 2011)


Rendering a ravaged landscape:
the steady eye of John Allan Wyeth

(Apr 6, 2010).


Artistry and authenticity
in the war sonnets of John Allan Wyeth

(May 27, 2012)


John Allan Wyeth:
Lost Poet of the Lost Generation
in The Best American Poetry blog.




ESSAYS: ART



Amid the crumbling of Monarchy,
the rise of the Individual:
cursory observations
on Revolution and Romanticism

(Feb 22, 2010)


Collaboration:
on the FSU campus, and in women's history

(Oct 5, 2009)


Avant-garde and kitsch

(Sept 1, 2009)




THEATRE REVIEWS



Cabaret:
fearless, audacious, disturbing

(Nov 15, 2011).


The Elephant Man:
disarming encounters with a Caliban-like creature

(Sept 27, 2011).


The Good Woman of Seztuan:
an apropos tale from a Modernist master

(Mar 3, 2011).


You're a Good Man Charlie Brown:
human nature revealed with impish humor

(Jan 24, 2011).


Kindertransport:
the essential heart of a tragic history

(Sept 28, 2010).


Cinderella packs the house
with hilarity, charm and polish

(Sept 16, 2010).


Edward II:
testing temerity and talent to the limit

(Apr 28, 2010).


Waiting for the bus with Chekov

(a review of Anton in Show Business,
Mar 22, 2010).


Pippin's opening night:
uneasy undertones brightly delivered

(Nov 30, 2009).


On a mild midsummer evening,
a frolic to the forum

(a review of
A Funny Thing Happened
on the Way to the Forum,
July 15, 2009).




ART EXHIBITION REVIEWS



The Western paintings of Tracey Stuckey:
iconic images with a twist

(Feb 15, 2010)


The paintings of Melissa May, "
…a more universal transcription of place…"

(Jan 28, 2010)


A scavenger among the rubble

(a review of the Mark Soppeland exhibition,
Oct 17, 2009)


Urgency, with discretion

(a review of the Derek Overfield exhibition,
Sept 9, 2009)






ENVIRONMENTAL / REGIONAL



Gas wells threaten basic human rights.

 Guest Commentary, Morgantown Dominion Post (June 5, 2011)


Monongalia County vs. Morgantown and the constitutional mandate to “protect the people”

(June 12, 2011)