Stillpoint: A Center for the Humanities & Community

Stillpoint: A Center for the Humanities & Community is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting a sense of community through the humanities. We work toward this through a small number of events each year, including poetry readings, writers workshops, author talks, music programs and other forums for experiencing and understanding the meaning of community in our lives.


Sunday, June 10, 2012

Under the Spell of Chuck Squier


November 24, 1864. Visualize a quiet morning on southeastern Colorado’s high plains. See in your mind’s eye lodges housing Indians who thought they were safe, at peace with the White people. Then think of the terror, the horror that ensued as hundreds of heavily armed soldiers of the First and Third Colorado Volunteer Regiments attacked, killing young men and old, but mostly women and children.

Consider the biases, the hate, fear, self-righteousness, the complexity of terrible acts and blame that led to this event and its aftermath.

Under the White Wing: Events at Sand Creek does all this and more. And on a Sunday afternoon in March, the full house listening to author Chuck Squier masterfully read his gripping narrative verse experienced again the distress, the melancholy that time and place holds. Spellbound by Chuck’s stunning portrayal of those involved, listeners could well heed these words by Gary Holthaus:

If we do not know this story and others like it in our history, we cannot acknowledge who we are as Americans and what we have done as a nation.

A memorable afternoon. If you haven’t heard Chuck Squier read from Under the White Wing, you have missed something extraordinary.


Attendees settle in for a singular experience.

Laura Goodman welcomes the group and thanks Chuck.

Reg Saner, Boulder's first poet laureate, introduces friend and colleague Chuck Squier.

Chuck captivates the audience with his resonate voice, 
portraying multiple facets of humankind. 

Photos courtesy of John Zola

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