Blog, November 9 — Patrick Donnelly

For those of you who don’t know, The Frost Place is a non-profit center for poetry and the arts located at the old homestead in Franconia, NH, where Robert Frost and his family lived full-time from 1915 to 1920 and spent nineteen summers. There are many fine summer poetry conferences, but to me The Frost Place is special: the beauty of the White Mountains, the literary history, the intimate workshops, and the we’re-all-in-this-together feel of the gatherings—in which the strong hierarchical divisions characteristic of some other conferences aren’t emphasized—immediately made a strong impression on me when I first taught there in 2008, and helped me understand why the institution inspires strong loyalty in anybody who has had a connection.Though there’s snow on the ground at The Frost Place now, our conference directors and staff are busy planning for 2012 programs, especially our three summer conferences:

• the Conference on Poetry and Teaching (June),
• the Festival and Conference on Poetry (July),
• and the Advanced Seminar (August).

Each of our conferences serves a slightly different group of writers (with some overlap). All provide a place where poets can study and improve their craft, gather for inspiration and community, and catch Robert Frost’s tailwind.

In addition, since 1977, The Frost Place has awarded a fellowship each summer to an emerging American poet, including a cash stipend and the opportunity to live and write in the house for several months. The application deadline has been extended for that position until Nov. 30th: http://www.frostplace.org/html/residentpoetapp.html

By Dec. 1st we’ll have our website updated with 2012 conference information, including faculty bios, which is also when our registration period will open for all conferences. We’re revamping our application process this year, and hoping to make it easier for everybody involved. The website will be the go-to place for those details:

www.frostplace.org/

Though our website isn’t yet updated with 2012 info, you can still review program descriptions there to get an idea of which conference might suit you best. ( A little bit like taking those seed catalogues to bed with you in the bleak midwinter.)

Again in 2012, the focus of the Advanced Seminar will be “Choosing Our Poetry Parents”: an exploration of how most poets take other poets for models. If the metaphor of “parent poet” doesn’t work for you, think mentor, teacher, guide, friend, pattern, exemplar. The modern family-of-choice being what it is, we can choose more than two Poetry Parents, who don’t have to be of opposite sexes, and who can even be younger than we are, contemporary or dead—because of course it is such poets’ work that we choose to guide us, and upon which we model our own work in myriad variations.

If you’ve attended the Advanced Seminar before, no need to worry that we’re going to cover the same material, because the craft focus and presentations change every year. In 2011, our focus included:

• the role and potential of “character,” of creating a quite particular voice in poems,
• which poets taught us what poem topics are “acceptable,” or gave permission in either content or form,
• and several different aspects of poetic syntax.

In 2012 we’ll turn our attention to other craft topics and different Poetry Parents, so come on back! In fact, what topics we might focus on next summer is a matter very much on my mind at the moment. If, as former Frost Place attendees or prospective attendees, you have a particular craft issue that is on the front burner for you right now, I’d love to hear about it. You can email me about that at PatrickSDonnelly@aol.com, or with any questions about the Advanced Seminar. I always want to choose craft topics that are of immediate relevance and usefulness for the poets who come to The Frost Place to study.