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matthewdickerson.bsky.social

@matthewdickerson.bsky.social
535 followers 95 following 239 posts
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Reposted by @matthewdickerson.bsky.social
Thomas Dickerson @elfprince13.mumak.app · 31/07/2026
@matthewdickerson.bsky.social poem alert
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
I'm still thankful to @nwirzba.bsky.social who first helped this book see the light with the University Press of Kentucky. It was UPK who notified me today of the translation, and offered to send me two copies. "Sure", I said. Though I don't speak or read Italian.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Just learned that my book "Ents, Elves, and Eriador" w/ Jonathan Evans on the environmental vision of #JRRTolkien was released in Italian translation. It's the 1st one listed on the publisher's #Tolkien page. Nice to see it finding new readers and continued life. fedecultura.com/products/ent...
fedecultura.com
Ent, Elfi ed Eriador - Matthew Dickerson e Jonathan Evans
Scopri la visione ecologica cristiana in Tolkien: Elfi, Ent e Hobbit come custodi della Terra. Un saggio che illumina l’attualità del suo mito.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Near the end of this iPhone video I took while fishing, you can see a sow and cubs get up from the tall grass and hurry away from the approaching boar. Just a few feet this side of them is a trail down to the river. That’s the trail I had just walked, maybe 15’ from where they had been napping.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Yup
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Was the improvement in speed immediately after seeing the bear??? I’ve walked within 15 feet of a sow brown bear with twins once before they lifted their head from the tall grass to look at me. Let me know if you and the fam want to go to that spot with me in summer 2027 :)
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
20 yrs ago my list could have included Calvin Miller, Madeleine L’Engle, Robert Siegel, Stephen Lawhead, and Walter Wangerin Jr. — who all wrote speculative fiction. 10 yrs ago it could have included Eugene Peterson, Lawhead, and Wangerin. Now, Lawhead would be my most-read living author.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
I’ve not only read 5 books by some of those; I’ve WRITTEN five books by at least one of those.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Yay milkweed
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
Kill Them All
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
That hits the nail on the head.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Connect the photos however you’d like in your imagination. But for me one evening last week, they were part of the same narrative — one I didn’t have to imagine. For the record, in case it helps you gauge proximity, both were with the same wide angle lens. And both taken from the same canoe.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Freight train to nowhere is a great song. And definitely seems relevant to our moment.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
This little red-eyed vireo collided with our window. Badly stunned, it spent 10 minutes on my hand and lap with eyes closed, then another 7 standing and looking around before it suddenly flew off into the woods. I hope it is the same #vireo I heard singing for an hour this evening. #birds
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Morning walk in the woods of Vermont. Surprised by a close visit from a female black-throated warbler. #birdwatching #morningwalk #warblers
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
#jrrtolkien’s hobbits were more fond of flower names than bird names. Among the few mentions of birds in LotR, at least once they were evil—though the eagles redeem all that. I could imagine hobbits naming a child Parula, Bunting, Vireo, or Veery if they ever heard the song or saw the colors of one.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Flocks of #warblers migrating through. Some stay for the summer. So many sings and colors! #Thrushes are back too. It’s been beautiful and delightful to see and hear. A few sightings new to my life list: northern parula, black-throated blue warbler, and black-throated green warbler. All photos mine.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
I have no doubt that if #jrrtolkien had been walking the forest this morning, these are what he would have noticed—and given both Elvish and Hobbitish names to.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
First #morningwalk of 2026 with large numbers of white trillium fully in bloom along with the red trillium, trout lily, spring beauties, blood root, and Dutchman’s Britches spread out along the trails and forest floor.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
@elfprince13.mumak.app beat me to this post. I’m honored to have a poem in this issue, that has so many (more-)accomplished alliterative poets!
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Reposted by @matthewdickerson.bsky.social
Thomas Dickerson @elfprince13.mumak.app · 28/04/2026
New @matthewdickerson.bsky.social alliterative verse just dropped
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Ruby Fairy Slippers. Because there’s no place like home. Or, rather, no place like the little vernal spring in the woods near my home. #morningwalk #vermont #fungi
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Are those pistachio Oreos??? What is the green?
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
So true!
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
Trout lily, hepatica, spring beauty, Dutchman’s britches, and trillium are all up and all but the last of those are blossoming. #morningwalk #wildflowers #considerthelilies
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
Some new bird sightings over the past week on my #morningwalk and #eveningwalk. A brown creeper and a pine warbler. The camo on the creeper is very good against the maple bark.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
The whole tray???
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
For #jrrtolkien folks interested in Icelandic or Old Norse. I visited Iceland on route from speaking at the Tolkien Conference in Zurich. Highlights included lunch with this reviewer www.bokmenntiroglistir.is/blog/dickerson (head of the Icelandic Lit. Soc.) and visiting an exhibit of Old Norse mss.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
Be more careful about what you read!
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
She doesn’t merely look out of her depth. She is. It isn’t clear she could even handle the kiddie wade pool.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
Newly posted essay on #jrrtolkien and his #middleearth writings: washingtoninst.org/grief-and-so...
washingtoninst.org
Grief and Sorrow in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth: the Importance of Lament and the Wisdom of Gandalf | The Washington Institute
What does it mean to lament? What does lament mean to you? At a basic level, to lament is to express sorrow or grief—usually visibly or audibly (or both), often in prayer or song or poetry. Lament can...
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
Continued: “Men are whole not only insofar as they make common cause with each other, but also insofar as they make common cause with their native earth, which is to say with the creation as a whole, which is to say with the creator.” Replacing “men” with “persons”, I would agree wholeheartedly.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
WENDELL BERRY, The Hidden Wound “…no man is alone, because he cannot be; he cannot arrange it so that either the good or the bad effects of his life will apply only to himself; he can only live in the creation, among the creatures, his life either adding to the commonwealth or subtracting from it.”
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
I will be speaking at this #jrrtolkien conference in Zurich in March on “Leadership in Middle-earth.” tolkien-tagung.ch There’s a great cast of speakers & it’s hybrid; online participation is free: tolkien-tagung.ch/contact-us My talk will focus on lament and leadership esp modeled by Gandalf.
tolkien-tagung.ch
Home Page
This is the official website of the one and only original Tolkien Conference Switzerland organized by the University of Zurich, the University of Lausanne, and the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
For those who live in the northeast and enjoy wildlife and wilderness landscape art. #middleburyvermont #photography #painting #art
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
A new review of an older book about #jrrtolkien and #ecology www.bookbub.com/reviews/6463...
bookbub.com
D. Art McKinney recommends Ents, Elves, and Eriador
An excellent analysis of Tolkien and his approaches to the environments of Middle-earth. Thought-provoking with well-supported information both within and without Tolkien's world.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
On the other hand, to balance it being Tom Riddle’s great grandson, given all the years you listened to me talk about JRRT at dinner (and everywhere else), and I studied Old English in graduate school under a former student of JRRT. you can probably claim to be Tolkien’s academic great-grandchild.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
Also, your great-grandfather (after whom you were named indirectly) is Tom Riddle. So… um… do your muggle friend know that?
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
Moonlight falls on the snowy woods, meadow, solar panel & woodshed. Cedar & pine, black birch & ash & sugar maple. And in the distance, a lone spruce where two mornings earlier four deer were browsing on spruce tips while an owl hunted from solar panel perch. #winterinvermont #lastdayofchristmas
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 04/01/2026
Are you calling the roads “sketchy” just because i got double flats 50 miles from the nearest pavement and 2.5 hours from the nearest place I could get them repaired???
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 30/12/2025
Words of wisdom from Norman Wirzba @nwirzba.bsky.social Certainly something I want to have in mind as a teacher.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 29/12/2025
Thanks for sharing. Very cool.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 28/12/2025
For the next nearly six months I get to watch the sunrise slowly moving northward. Wherever it comes up, I always enjoy its first peeking of the morning over the Green Mountains.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
#morningwalk on the Maine coast in mist
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
Want to live on (escape to) another planet? I understand the impulse! Here’s a profound and important idea from my current read: “This Sacred Life”, by philosopher & writer Norman Wirzba @nwirzba.bsky.social whose many books I have found deeply thoughtful and moving. #goodbooks #transhumanism
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
Thanks for the reminder of this poem… and the wonderful issue in which it appeared, and all the work that went into that.
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
I really enjoyed this conversation about rivers, fly fishing, ecology, and native fish with Katie for her Fish Untamed podcast. It’s a wonderful podcast with some great guests and topics. www.fishuntamed.com/podcast/epis... #flyfishing #riverecology #nativefish #alaska #dollyvardenchar #trout
fishuntamed.com
Ep 166: Native Fish and Biodiversity, with Matthew Dickerson — Fish Untamed
Matthew Dickerson is a freelance writer who has published in The Drake , Backcountry Journal , American Fly Fishing , Written River , and Fly Fishing International. He has also written many book...
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
I made this 8 yrs ago as part of a series, after serving as artist-in-residence at Glacier NP. I watched again today, reminded of what a priceless treasure our national parks and public lands are. What a loss if they get sold & exploited. #glaciernationalpark #nationalparks youtu.be/eorkWtTNUh0?...
youtu.be
Glacier National Park (and its Native Trout): An Introduction
YouTube video by Trout Downstream and Heart Streams
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matthewdickerson.bsky.social @matthewdickerson.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
Want to come down to Bristol and cut wood with me and make a donation? We just need a way to haul it. If you have others who will come alongside is, I have the wood (not shortage) and a splitter. And be happy to donate to the hearing bank. We just need laborers.
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