Zoe Ward, Staff Writer
Professor Emeritus David Baker and Professor Peter Grandbois took the stage Jan. 29 to commence the 2026 Beck Series.
The event took place at the Denison Museum amid the Curiosity Exhibit, which featured dozens of eclectic items selected by university professors and the like.
The distinguished professors were introduced by poet Dr. Julia Kolchinsky. David Baker is the Thomas B. Fordham Chair of Creative Writing and the author of twelve books, including his newly published poetry collection, “Swift.”
Beyond spending over thirty years teaching at Denison, Baker has amassed a staggering resume, including pieces published in “The New Yorker” and “The Yale Review.”
Baker’s stage presence appeared as relaxed and focused as his classroom disposition. The poetry he read centered on existing in the natural world, ranging from violence and illness to wonderment at a cloud of fireflies.
The first poem he read aloud, saying “The world goes on entirely without us. Good thing.”
The sentiment encapsulated many of his pieces’ themes. Baker read further poems from his books, captivating the audience with depictions of building a swingset for his daughter amidst a significant sickness, walking in Denison’s bioreserve after a period of inability, and watching sand crabs scurrying after retiring from teaching.
Granbois read after Baker. A fiction aficionado, he is the author of 15 books, including his newly released “Cat People & Dream Memories of the Fifty Foot Woman.”
Grandbois is the coach of Denison’s award winning fencing team and has published work in over 150 magazines.
He was introduced by student Fiona Kogan ‘26, whose senior project has been influenced by taking his Rewriting Fairy Tales course.
Grandbois introduced “Cat People” to the audience, explaining that the project was influenced by his love of 1940s movies. He showed the audience a clip from “Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman,” the reprised classic that originally inspired his novel.
His piece described the David Bowie jungle-esque soundtrack, depicting the movie—and his novel’s—setting as “a world beyond words.”
Grandbois said that his new novel continued to grow his literary prowess with the inclusion of a female narrator’s voice. He also said that his novel had a slight feminist lean as influenced by the protagonist, Allison Hayes, a movie star inspired by the historic actress of the same name; Hayes, who portrayed the fifty-foot woman, suffered gradual lead poisoning and was unbelieved throughout the film and in her real life.