The MassPOP Poetry Retreat for High School Teachers
at the Boston Anthenaeum

The MassPOP high school teacher poetry retreat and professional development training will take place on August 12 and 13th from 10 am to 4 pm and will be led by Jill McDonough and Maggie Dietz, Boston-area poets and teachers. This two-day workshop will provide teachers with an opportunity to work on their own writing in the luxurious and storied environment of the Boston Athenaeum–and develop innovative and engaging ways of teaching poetry to high school students. Facilitators will demonstrate classroom activities based on a range of texts covering a variety of different experiences and subject matter, including meter, tone, voice, and incorporating historical materials into creative work. The workshop will include writing exercises, modeling exercises, poetry readings, class discussions, and plenty of quiet time for teachers to work on their own poems in the beautiful environment of the Athenaeum. Teachers will be presented with a packet of lesson plans developed with the class as well as other supplementary materials to use in the classroom. For more information, please email Chloe Garcia Roberts, at chloe@masspoetry.org.

The Location:

The Boston Athenæum, a membership library, first opened its doors in 1807. Today, it remains a vibrant and active institution that serves a wide variety of members and scholars. The mission of the Boston Athenæum is to serve its members, the broader community, and scholars throughout the world by preserving and augmenting its collections of books and art, by providing library services and cultural programs, and by preserving and enhancing the unique atmosphere of its landmark building. It is located at 10 ½ Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02108 and is accessible by public transportation.

The Teachers:

Jill McDonough’s poems appear in The Threepenny Review, Poetry, The New Republic, and Slate. Her awards include a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from the NEA, the Fine Arts Work Center, Stanford’s Stegner Program, and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. Habeas Corpus, her first book of poems, is fifty sonnets about executions in American history. She is a 2010 Witter Bynner Fellow at the Library of Congress.

Maggie Dietz’s book of poems Perennial Fall (University of Chicago, 2006) won the 2007 Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry. For many years she directed the Favorite Poem Project, Robert Pinsky’s special undertaking during his tenure as U.S. Poet Laureate, and is coeditor of three anthologies related to the project: Americans’ Favorite Poems (W.W. Norton & Co., 1999), Poems to Read (Norton, 2002), and, most recently, An Invitation to Poetry (Norton, 2004), for which Dietz co-authored the classroom guide. Her work has appeared in journals such as Poetry, Ploughshares, Agni, Harvard Review and Salmagundi. Dietz teaches currently in the Creative Writing Program at Boston University and is assistant poetry editor for the online magazine Slate.

The Cost:

Free for up to 20 teachers in high schools across the Commonwealth.