English professor Huck Gutman, on leave from his 40-year post at the university to serve as chief of staff for Sen. Bernie Sanders, was profiled in The Boston Globe article, “A Poetic Respite from Politics,” for bringing bipartisan respite to the contentious rhetoric of Washington.

His periodic emails, which include a poem – anything from the Ancient Greeks to Emily Dickinson – along with detailed analysis, are distributed to 1,700 readers including all Senate chiefs of staff, several White House staffers, university presidents, academics, journalists and former students. The idea, Gutman told the Globe, is “‘to remind (people) there are other things than the debt ceiling and Social Security,’” such as “’...the noncombatant pursuits of intellectual pleasure and personal enrichment.’” Read the story at Boston.com.