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—how they move and sound. Teachers can do this, too, with their students. That’s why we bring poets and teachers together at the Frost Place— so teachers can experience how poets approach poems, not as critics but as artists.” — Baron Wormser, poet and conference director
In addition, over the course of five days, three 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
Applications
Conference applications are reviewed as they are received. Space is limited to ensure opportunities for teachers to interact with the poets most effectively. To apply, send the attached application form and a brief letter describing your current teaching position, background, and interest in poetry and teaching to: Baron Wormser, Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching, 834 Thistle Hill Road, Marshfield, VT 05658.
Tuition
For the 2009 conference, tuition will be $625. Daily lunch and two dinners (optional but recommended, as alternatives are some distance away) are available for $97.
Financial Aid
Public school teachers are urged to inquire if their principals have Title 5 or Rural Education Program funds for professional development to disburse, which teachers have found can partially or fully cover tuition expenses for this conference. Past participants have also been awarded assistance from local Rotary Clubs and other local service organizations. Please let us know if you are seeking financial aid; we have some aid available, through scholarships sponsored by the family and friends of longtime teacher Murray Alboher, by New Hampshire jeweler Designer Gold, by the family and friends of Anne L. Fitzpatrick, and sponsored, for underserved populations, by the National Endowment for the Arts. Applicants must first be accepted into the program, then apply for financial aid by sending an email letter to the attention of Deming Holleran at 
. Applications for assistance must be postmarked by May 15, 2009.
Graduate Credits
Conference participants earn three graduate-level credits through Plymouth State University in New Hampshire, for an additional $546 ($495 for NH residents). The syllabus for this option is posted HERE. Contact-hour certification is provided for all who attend.
Accommodations
Reasonably priced lodging can be found close to the conference site. See suggestions here.
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.
Charlotte Gordon has published two books of poetry, When The Grateful Dead Came To St. Louis and Two Girls on a Raft. Her work has received many prizes, including a Robert Penn Warren Award, and has been featured on National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition” with Scott Simon. She has been invited to read her poetry at various New England colleges, schools, and cultural institutions, including Radcliffe College, University of New Hampshire, Salem State College, University of Massachusetts and The Salem Atheneum. She first fell in love with the seventeenth-century poet, Anne Bradstreet, in 1991, and her newest book is a biography, Mistress Bradstreet: The Untold Life of America’s First Poet.
Geof Hewitt has degrees from Cornell, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Iowa. He is a consultant for the Vermont Department of Education, and he has served as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Vermont and Vermont College, and as teaching poet for the Frost Place’s Young Poets Conference. He is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Only What’s Imagined, and three books for teachers: A Portfolio Primer, Today You Are My Favorite Poet: Writing Poems with Teenagers, and Hewitt's Guide to Slam Poetry and Poetry Slam, which comes with a DVD showing him at work in Vermont classrooms.
Elizabeth Powell was born in New York City, and she has a BA from the University of Wisconsin and an MFA in Fiction Writing from Vermont College. She has taught at Goddard College and St. Michael’s College and currently teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Vermont. She has also worked as a journalist and congressional aide. She is the author of The Republic of Self, winner of the 2000 New Issues First Book of Poetry Prize, chosen by C.K. Williams. Her poems have appeared in Harvard Review, Missouri Review, Post Road, Green Mountains Review, North American Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Sonora Review, and Poet Lore, and her short fiction has appeared in The Black Warrior Review. She is the recipient of fellowships from Yaddo, the Vermont Council on the Arts (in poetry and in fiction), and the Arts Vermont Endowment.
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P.O. Box 74 , Ridge Road, Franconia, NH 03580
Telephone: (603) 823–5510
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