2008 Tuition: $600, plus $86 for five lunches and two dinners (optional but recommended). For an additional $405, this conference can be taken as a graduate-level course, earning 3 credits through Plymouth State University. Applications are reviewed as received and are welcome now.
Each summer, the Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching brings together hard-working classroom teachers and highly skilled poet/teachers to share their experiences of how poetry is most effectively presented in the classroom — not as a fossilized system of literary tropes, but as a living art.
As one teacher participant said, “This week I learned more about the craft of poetry than I ever did as an undergraduate.”
“Poets talk about how poems work. Students and teachers can do that, too. That’s why we bring poets and teachers together at The Frost Place—so the teachers can hear how poets look at poems.” —Baron Wormser, Iron Horse Literary Review (Spring 2004)
In addition, over the course of five days, four nationally acclaimed poets will present very specific techniques for teaching poetry, including sample exercises and prompts that teachers will be invited to try out then discuss. Each day will offer sessions devoted to the participants sharing of their own teaching ideas, a popular element in past conferences. The final morning session will provide an opportunity to discuss what’s been learned and ways to implement new approaches.
And both faculty poets and participants will have the chance to read their poems in Robert Frost’s historic barn, now a rustic auditorium/classroom. As recent teacher-participants have said:
“After one morning, heck, after one hour in the barn, I was cured. By the end of the week, I was recharged, rededicated, and bolstered by the company of amazing educators whose kindred spirits I will call upon in the year to come. It may sound ridiculous, but there are moments when I thought, ‘This is so good to be here. It’s nearly too good to be true.’ And listening to poets read at night made the week sublime.”
“I continue to see so many ways I can use poetry in the classroom and I plan to do so. There's no end in sight—soon it may be all poetry, all the time.”
Application Process and Fees
To apply, send a brief letter describing your current teaching position, background, and interest in poetry and teaching to:
The Frost Place
Teacher Conference
PO Box 74
Franconia, NH 03580
Applications for the conference are accepted after December 1, 2007, and are read and reviewed as they are received. Space is limited to insure opportunities for teachers to interact with the poets most effectively.
Tuition for the 2008 conference will be $600. Daily lunch and two dinners (optional but recommended, as alternatives are some distance away) are available for $86.
Public school teachers are urged to inquire if their principals have Title 5 or Rural Education Program funds for professional development to disperse, which teachers have found can partially or fully cover tuition expenses for this conference. Other past participants have been awarded assistance from local Rotary Clubs and other service organizations. Please let us know if you are seeking financial aid.
Three graduate credits are available for conference participants through Plymouth State University in New Hampshire, for a modest additional fee ($135 per credit, $405 for three credits, in 2008). Certification of contact hours is also provided. PDF Course Syllabus
Reasonably priced accommodations can be found locally (see suggestions on the Frost Place website, or let us know if you’d like to receive a list in the mail).
FACULTY
In the spring of 2008, Baron Wormser published three books in three genres: Scattered Chapters: New & Selected Poems, The Poetry Life: Ten Stories, and the paperback edition of The Road Washes Out in Spring: A Poet’s Memoir of Living Off the Grid. He is also co-author of two superb guides for teachers, Teaching the Art of Poetry: The Moves and A Surge of Language: Teaching Poetry Day by Day. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation and an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the University of Maine, Augusta, and he served as Poet Laureate of Maine from 2000 to 2006. He is currently on the faculty of the Stonecoast MFA Program and works as an independent poetry teacher and mentor. He lives with his wife in Marshfield, Vermont.
Dawn Potter is the author of two collections of poetry, Boy Land & Other Poems (2004) and the forthcoming How the Crimes Happened. New poems and essays are appearing in the Sewanee Review, Threepenny Review, Prairie Schooner, and many other journals. A member of the Beloit Poetry Journal's editorial board, she has taught at Haystack Montain School of Crafts and for the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She has also worked extensively in the public schools, both as a visiting poet and as a staff music teacher. She lives in Harmony, Maine.
Alice B. Fogel is the author of three books of poetry — Elemental and I Love This Dark World (Zoland, 1993 and 1996), and the new Be That Empty: Apologia for Air (Harbor Mountain Press, 2007) — and her poems have appeared many journals and such anthologies as Best American Poetry and Robert Hass’s Poet’s Choice. Awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, she teaches writing, literature, and other arts for all ages and she is co-founder of the annual N.H. Young Writers Conference, a frequent artist-in-the-schools, and a custom clothier. Her wedding gown made of twenty-two recycled men's shirts won Grand Prize in Ithaca's Re-fashion Show.
Mekeel McBride is the author of seven books of poetry. Her latest work, Dog Star Delicatessen (Carnegie Mellon, 2006) presents a selection of poems from previous books alongside new work. She has taught at Harvard University, Princeton University, Wheaton College, Berwick Academy, and since 1979 at the University of New Hampshire. She also works part time as a floor-guard and birthday party specialist at Happy Wheels Roller Rink. She lives in Kittery, Maine.
Shara McCallum is the author of two books of poems, Song of Thieves and The Water Between Us (Pittsburgh, 1999 and 2003). She has been awarded an Academy of American Poets Prize, and her poems and personal essays have appeared in many journals and in anthologies such as The New American Poets: A Bread Loaf Anthology and Beyond the Frontier: African American Poetry for the Twenty-first Century. She has given readings throughout the U.S. and in the Caribbean, and she now teaches and directs the Stadler Center for Poetry at Bucknell University. She is also on the faculty of the Stonecoast MFA program in Maine. She was born in Jamaica and now lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and daughter.
J. D. Scrimgeour coordinates the Creative Writing Program at Salem State College in Massachusetts. He is author of a poetry collection, The Last Miles (Fine Tooth Press, 2005), and essays from his AWP Award-winning collection Themes For English B (University of Georgia Press, 2006) appeared in The Boston Globe Magazine, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Thought & Action. His essay, “Living the Outfield” won the Writing Baseball contest sponsored by Creative Nonfiction. He lives in Salem, Massachusetts, with his wife and their two sons.
Programs 
About the Frost Place The MuseumContact Us
P.O. Box 74 , Ridge Road, Franconia, NH 03580
Telephone: (603) 823–5510
Site by John Lehet
