The UMass polo team defeated the Kemptville Koyotes of Ontario, Canada 5-2 on Oct. 31, winning its second home game of the season.

Elise McHugh, a junior, scored all five goals for UMass – or “Boo! Mass,” as the players’ handmade Halloween-themed uniforms read – at Stone Pony Farm in Leverett.

WORKING WELL TOGETHER

“She was a real superstar,” said McHugh’s teammate, senior Amy Dolan. Dolan and McHugh started in the game along with the team’s third varsity player, junior Tanya Chesnell.Though stating that she was excited by the win, McHugh was not eager to take all the credit for UMass’ five goals, two of which she scored on penalty shots.

“There was a lot of passing involved,” said McHugh. “I just happened to be closest to the goal.”
Dolan also said that the three starters worked well together.

“As a team, we had a lot of good passes,” said Dolan. “Sometimes I would back [the ball] and [McHugh] would pick up my back shot and make a goal. … We all made plays and she finished them.”
Also playing in their first game were UMass junior varsity players Mindy Lucas, a junior, and Heather Sliney, a senior.

‘IT WAS AWESOME’

After UMass ended the first of three 5-minute chukkers – periods in polo – with a 3-1 lead over the Koyotes, assistant coach C.B. Blyth rotated in Lucas for Chesnell in the second.

Despite some nervous feelings before stepping into an arena with a few dozen spectators looking on, Lucas said after her first match: “It was awesome. It was really exciting.”

Sliney, who came in for Lucas in the third chukker, said her first match was “a lot of fun.” Though, she said she had some bumps and bruises as a result of one of the Koyotes players who “had a really hard bump,” which is a common play in the equestrian game.

The varsity players enjoyed having the junior varsity players in the game, “I’m glad that Heather and Mindy got to play and they played really well,” said Chesnell, though adding that she was a bit disappointed she didn’t get to play in the whole game. “I’m spoiled,” she said with a laugh. “I usually get to play all three chukkers.”

The Koyotes girls weren’t too disappointed about their loss, despite coming off their first team win the night before against Vassar College.

‘WE KNEW WE HAD A CHALLENGE’

“We just watched [UMass] play last year,” said Koyotes captain Jen Shumilak. “We saw what a strong team they were. We knew we had a challenge, especially since this is only our second year we’ve been playing together.”

Koyotes coach George Bezak said stamina may have also been an issue for the team. “They were tired,” said Bezak of his players after the Halloween match. He noted that the arena at Stone Pony Farm was regulation size, or 300 feet by 150 feet – five times larger than the arena they practice in back home at the Augusta Polo Club.

Both teams, which compete under the United States Polo Association’s Northeast intercollegiate division, are hoping to schedule a rematch after the new year, this time on the Koyotes’ territory. Today at 2 p.m., UMass will be looking to repeat its Halloween victory in a match against Skidmore College. Today’s game will also take place at Stone Pony Farm, 147 Long Plain Road in Leverett.

“People have regrets over their lifetime, but I understand who I was,” said Pat Levasseur, a defendant in the 1989 trial, to a swarm of reporters in an impromptu press conference while protestors, supporters, students and faculty waited outside the Isenberg School of Management auditorium.

The University initially requested Raymond Luc Levasseur to speak at the UMass W.E.B. Dubois Library’s 5th Annual Colloquium for Social Change about the sedition trial, where he, ex-wife Pat Levasseur, and associate Richard Williams were tried and acquitted of charges of seditious conspiracy, violation of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (substantive RICO), and racketeering conspiracy.

Raymond Luc Levasseur is the founder of the United Freedom Front (UFF), and was sentenced to 45 years in prison for his connection with a series of bombings on government and military facilities between 1976 and 1979 in protest of U.S. backing of Central American death squads and the South African Apartheid government. After 20 years, Levasseur was paroled in 2004 from Florence, Colorado federal penitentiary, ADX, also called the “Alcatraz of the Rockies.”

After the university invited Levasseur to speak, a number of people (including Donna Lamonaco, widow of a New Jersey police officer killed by the UFF) protested Levasseur’s trip to UMass and the invitation was revoked. After this decision, the University came under fire again as many wrote letters complaining that it was unfair to bar Levasseur from speaking. Faculty of the University as well as student groups on campus asked for Levasseur to speak at the University, but he was ultimately denied the right to travel to Massachusetts by his parole board.

Instead, a panel of defense lawyers and jurors from the 1989 trial along with Pat Levasseur reunited in front of a packed auditorium in the Isenberg School of Management. Donna Lamonaco was invited to speak, but declined.

“When censorship prevails we all lose…The principals on which America stands are shredded to some degree and that’s happened here to some degree,” said director of Western Massachusetts’ ACLU office, Bill Newman, who gave introductory remarks. “On the other hand, the attempt to censor Ray Levasseur has failed and you are the proof of that. The newspaper and media coverage, the radio and television coverage has multiplied 100 times because of the attempts at censorship, and I think that speaks to principals for which I hope most people stand, which is in a country of freedom free speech matters! Opinions matter! Debate matters! What we say to each other matters! History matters! Our view of the world and our sharing it with each other, that all matters!”

Pat Levasseur’s world view was very much shaped by her parents’ opposition against racism in the 50’s and the Vietnam War in the 60’s.
“We grew up in a unique family given where we lived and that meant that from the time that I was a little kid in school I was different…I believed in peace and that we were all the same on the inside,” said Levasseur in a soft spoken voice.

Levasseur described her family as “very patriotic,” with a father in the army, a brother who served in World War II and a brother who died from exposure to Agent Orange after serving in the Vietnam War.
“But part of being patriotic is believing in the Constitution and I remember being bored one summer day and my mother said, ‘Go to the library and start reading,’ and it was a really teeny tiny library…but there were some good books there and I did get turned on reading things,” said Levasseur. “I learned about the rights of man. I really believed in change.”

When she was 17, Levasseur went to California to protest against the Vietnam War. She was hit by a car there, and when she woke up in the hospital Levasseur learned that Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed. Two months later, Bobby Kennedy was killed, and upon her return east, the Kent State massacre occurred. “All of these things I felt very deeply, and they motivated me, and I knew that whatever I did, I wasn’t going to sit here and type bills in this medical office anymore.”

Levasseur met Raymond Luc Levasseur in the Statewide Correctional Alliance for Reform (SCAR), an organization opposing the use of prisons as places to “control people and provide jobs so there would be a steady group of disenfranchised colored and poor people,” said Levasseur. “They radicalized me.”

Ray Levasseur, Pat Levasseur, and the other five associates accused of attempting to overthrow the U.S. government were arrested and originally prosecuted by the head of the FBI at the time Robert S. Mullin. Aided by two tanks, helicopters and planes, the Hostage Rescue Squad and all 50 members of the FBI, Mullin had the Levasseur’s home surrounded, said defense lawyer Elizabeth Fink.

“And you know what he [Mullin] forgot? A search warrant,” said Fink “All he had to do was go to any judge and say, ‘Oh well I just found out where Ray Levsseur is. We’ve been looking for him for 10 years,’ and any judge—any judge would have given him a search warrant. But he didn’t think he needed one because he was the government, and the constitution didn’t exist for him. Just like the constitution didn’t exist for Cheney and [Jay] Bibby and [David] Addington. Because it’s the same issue here. It’s if you don’t put your government to the task, if you don’t make them follow the constitution then you get what we just got, which is eight years of our constitution being used as toilet paper and this is what happened in this case.”

Even though Levasseur himself could not attend the event, a number of protesters still gathered outside Isenberg School of Management in support of Massachusetts police officers and the fallen New Jersey officer. They stood in the dark, holding candles and signs reading “shame on UMass” and “UMass supports terrorism recruitment.”

One protester, representing the Massachusetts Police Association, Robert Frydryk explained why he and other protesters were present that night. “We support freedom of speech, we support the academic freedom, but we don’t support terrorists coming to campus… we think there are other ways to find out about the topic of terrorism without bringing terrorists to the campus.”

Protester Denise Baran said she didn’t see the value in having Levasseur speak. “I think it is appalling that UMass even thought to bring him here. What does he have to contribute?” she asked. Standing beside Baran, David Chamberlain added that he believed some things are worth discussing, but because of his criminal past, Levasseur forfeited his right to speak. “Some topics, it’s healthy to hear both sides, but this particular subject is not because he’s murdered people,” he said.

During a question and answer session following the panel presentation, Attorney Elizabeth Fink made a distinction between the crimes or which Ray Levasseur was tried and a terrorist attack.

“The definition of terrorism is politically motivated random acts of violence against a civilian population. The 11 bombings for which they were charged in Brooklyn in which they were convicted of some of them, none of them were against civilian populations and none of them resulted in any harm to anyone,” said Fink. “You can support these bombings, you can think they’re stupid, they’re wrong whatever. But in terms of what terrorism means, which is civilian random acts of violence, these were not acts of terrorism; they were acts of sabotage.”

For Attorney Fink, there is an important message to be taken from all of this.

“Violence doesn’t work. It doesn’t. People made a lot of mistakes about thinking it did, but it doesn’t,” says Fink. “I think that after being a lawyer for 35 years and representing people who have used violence I have to tell you, it doesn’t work, and that is the true story here.”

Kimya Hedayat-Zadeh contributed to this report

The UMass English department sponsored the Oct. 29 event as well as a weekend of Poe events to celebrate the bicentennial of the birth of one of New England’s most influential authors in 1809. The readings were an introduction to the weekend’s events where the guest authors would be present along with Poe inspired music and art and, a Poe impersonator.

photo credit Hollis Smith/Amherst Wire

Science fiction writer and Conway resident, John Crowley, explains that Poe’s work remains important because of its timelessness. “The reason to talk about him [Poe] and read his works is because they are deathless,” he says. Novelist, Elizabeth Hand, believes that Poe’s influence can be found in a lot of modern writing. “Things that you wouldn’t think of having been influenced by Poe, if you trace all the way back you’ll find him there,” Hand explains. For poet, Martín Espada, Poe’s work represents a window into the workings of humanity. For this, he will always remain relevant. “I think any writer who connects us with what it means to be a human is relevant,” says Espada. “I read Poe today, not just because it reminds me of what it means to be human today, but also because it gives me a glimpse into the mind of a 19th century man, who also happened to be a genius, who did something that had never been done before, and, in some ways, has never been done since.”

For Hand, Crowley, and Espada, their personal introductions to Poe’s work all came at a young age. Crowley says it is important to read Poe as a child to fully appreciate his work at an older age. “He is actually always the eternal adolescent. If you don’t read Poe when you’re an adolescent you aren’t going to enjoy him that much later on” he explains. “I started reading Poe when I was 8, 9, 10, 11 years old and Martín’s reading of the Cask of Amontillado is just great because it brought instantly back the feelings I had when I first read that story.”

photo credit Hollis Smith/Amherst Wire

For Espada, being exposed to Poe’s works helped to change him from a failing English student to a successful poet and English professor. “I flunked English in the 8th grade, and today I am a professor of English, which shows you something about the direction in which your life can go,” says Espada. “There were a number of turning points in my life where I heard something or read something that would give me a jolt, a bump in the right direction…When I was in high school, busy flunking English, I heard one day, in school, a recording of Basil Rathbone reading an Edgar Allan Poe story called The Cask of Amontillado… I had no idea that anybody could animate Edgar Allan Poe, or any writer, the way that he did. Listening to that story set me in the direction of reading Edgar Allan Poe. I loved it.”

The story that Hand tells of her first encounter with Poe’s works is almost stranger than fiction. “One day when we [Hand and her family] were camping somewhere, I kind of wandered off and I met a girl who was exactly my age, and she looked very much like me,” Hand recalls. “We sat down on a log and she began telling me this story. It was the most amazing scary story that I’d ever heard in my life.” After this meeting, she never saw the girl again. She later discovered that the story the girl told was actually Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum. Hand says that even to this day, that girl’s retelling is the scariest she has ever heard.

Since their first exposures, the works of Edgar Allan Poe has meant something different to each author. From the moment she first heard The Pit and the Pendulum, Elizabeth Hand was set on her path as a horror writer. “I really did get jump-started when I was a kid by hearing somebody tell a ghost story that turned out years later, I learned, was The Pit and the Pendulum. And I just thought that the girl telling it was such a genius that she made up this great story,” says Hand. For her, being inspired by Poe’s work is nothing new. “I think he’s sort of in the DNA of anyone writing. Even what we now call ‘magic realism,” explains Hand.

photo credit Hollis Smith/Amherst Wire

John Crowley says he and Poe are very different writers. “I can’t say that Poe influenced anything that I’ve actually written,” claims Crowley. However, as a science fiction writer, it is interesting that Crowley is most fond of an aspect of Poe’s writing that is generally overlooked when it is read strictly for literary value. “The most interesting thing about Poe to me now, which wasn’t as interesting when I was reading him as a kid…was how he used what was then cutting edge science to make points in his story,” says Crowley.

This celebration of the 200th birthday of Edgar Allen Poe speaks not of the times, but rather how far his literacy influence has spread. As this event shows, Poe’s works are still worth talking about centuries later because they still have the ability to inspire and frighten us in a time when most thrilling entertainment is overly sensationalist. Hand, Espada, and Crowley demonstrate that the power of Poe’s writing is universal and has the ability to inspire modern day poets and science fiction writers alike.