Literary journal features NMCC professor
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — David Raymond, chair of the Arts and Sciences Department at Northern Maine Community College, will have an article published in The Explicator, a quarterly journal for teachers and students of literature, dedicated to criticism of prose and poetry.
The article focuses on one of the most analyzed poems of Robert Frost: “Two Tramps in Mud Time.” Many interpret the work abstractly as a poem about the art of poetry writing, Frost’s disdain for the New Deal, or his views on the obligations we have to each other in our social relationships. But in his paper, “The Philosophy of Work in Robert Frost’s ‘Two Tramps in Mud Time,’” Raymond takes a different view.
“My interpretation of the poem is a plain and simple portrait of the joy of work and the key to finding happiness in work,” explains Raymond.
“We are proud of David’s scholarly research and recent publications,” said Dr. Dottie Martin, NMCC academic dean. “He also offered to provide two book reviews for Maine History, the only periodical devoted to scholarship on the history of Maine.”
“In the winter 2015 edition, David’s reviews of ‘The Reverend Jacob Bailey, Maine Loyalist’ by James Leamon and ‘The Wilder Half of New England’ by William Barry are featured in this peer-reviewed publication,” said Smith.
Raymond also had an article published in The Explicator’s July-September 2014 issue. “The Work Ethic of Walden Pond” offered an interpretation of Henry David Thoreau’s philosophy of work found in his classic book, “Walden Pond.”
“While readers have many theories on the meaning and lessons of ‘Walden,’ a close reading of the book shows Thoreau was teaching that work done right brings pleasure to the worker, quality to the product and justice to the consumer,” said Raymond. “That is the work ethic of ‘Walden Pond.’”
Raymond completed his master’s thesis on the text and excerpts from the book have become a staple in his “Working in America” class.
Raymond has also published a paper called “The Legacy of Samuel J. Mills, Jr.” in the International Bulletin of Missionary Research. Raymond became interested in Mills while researching and writing about one of the most prominent missionaries of the American foreign missions movement, Adoniram Judson.
“During the work on my earlier publication about Judson, I learned of Samuel J. Mills, Jr. who was an unsung hero in the formation of the first foreign missionary society in America and was a key player in the founding of the American Bible Society in the early 1800’s. The Society worked to provide Bibles to anyone who could not afford one,” said Raymond. “Mills was also a principal player in the early days of the American Colonization Society, the first antislavery society in America.”
