Packer Corners

  • <p>Asa Elliot 1971- Packer Corners/ Total Loss Farm</p> <p>Asa Elliot 1971- Packer Corners/ Total Loss Farm</p>

Play Audio

  • The turbulence of 1968 drives a group of writers and artists, lured by the pink haze and scent of a peach orchard, to create a place 'organized around the word' they'd call 'Total Loss Farm' to test the dream of a commonwealth and whose inhabitants still 'stand for something else' today, once pariahs, now pillars of the community.

  • "The Bard of Guilford" Verandah Porche recounts things learned on the farm - the old-timers ways, the new language of nature, and shares some poetry including 'Chance Meeting'.

  • Night Walk. Maria joins Peter Gould on a walk to the cemetery where he shares a ghost story featuring thundering hooves and recounts a racist raid on the home of a local Black family. We hear a passage from his first novel "Burnt Toast" set on the farm. Gould's subsequent book "Horse Drawn Yogurt" also contains humorous anecdotes about life on the hill at Packer Corners.

About

Listen to Journalist Maria Margaronis remember her coming of age at Packer Corners, one of several communes that attracted artists and writers to settle near Packer Corners in Guilford in the turbulent days of the late 1960s.

Tour Stop Location: Packer Corner

Corner Road, Guilford, Vermont 05301, United States

Research & Production

Script, Narration, Audio Production: Maria Margaronis
Voices on Segment 1: Verandah Porche, Richard Wyzanski
Voice on Segment 2: Verandah Porche
Voice on Segment 3: Peter Gould

Ongoing Development and Involvement:

As a community-created project, we encourage ongoing dialogue, questions, and engagement. If you would like to be involved in future developments, have information or a perspective that could deepen others' understanding of this topic, please contact us.