* CavanKerry Press asked me to write a short essay about the experience of judging the 2015 state finals of New Jersey Poetry Out Loud.

* I am sorry to report that Ruckus ate a junco yesterday.

* Today is Robert Frost's birthday, and I wish I were sitting on his front porch with you. The Frost Place been getting a steady stream of applications for the 2015 Conference on Poetry and Teaching. The conference is open to anyone, teacher or otherwise, who is eager to make poetry an essential element of his or her daily life. If you teach school, lead poetry workshops, run online courses, or offer lifelong-learning classes; if you work in social service, administrative, or government settings; if you are involved in social media outreach, are frightened of/overwhelmed by/delirious about poetry; if you are longing for collegial conversation; if you have written hundreds of poems or have never written a single poem; if you primarily work in another genre but have been looking for a chance to immerse yourself in poems and poem talk and friendship, well, then the Frost Place is the place for you. Please, please consider joining us.