Stuff Going On

I spent much of yesterday afternoon working on Frost Place business, and I am feeling so cheerful and confident about this summer's Conference on Poetry and Teaching. Not only will the guest poets be stellar--Rich Villar, Kerrin McCadden, and Afaa Michael Weaver--but applications have been brisk. It looks like we will have many new faces at the conference, and this is very good news.

If you have been considering coming to the Frost Place this summer but haven't gotten around to applying, you might want to make your move soon. We are open to teachers at all levels, in all venues, as well as former teachers, future teachers, workshop facilitators, and general lovers of poetry. The only requirement is an eagerness to make poetry part of whatever work you do in this world.

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Tomorrow night, Friday, April 15, my band, Doughty Hill, will be playing at Nocturnem Draft Haus in downtown Bangor, 8-11 p.m. Nocturnem may be the best pub in the city, and we're very excited to be performing for its fifth-anniversary celebration. So if you're in the neighborhood, stop by and visit.

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Next week, I'll be involved in two literary events.

First, on Thursday, April 21, I'll be helping to introduce poet Wes McNair and novelist Monica Wood at the Two Cent Talks reading series in Waterville. The readings begin at 5:30 p.m., at Common Street Arts, with dinner afterward for anyone who cares to linger.

Second, on Friday, April 22, I'll be a featured reader at the Beloit Poetry Journal's Maine Poetry Gala, at Space Gallery in Portland, 7 p.m. I'm pretty happy about this, and I look forward to seeing a few of you there.

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Finally, in the local annals of Stuff Going On: The garlic has sprouted. Frogs were belching in the pond for about half an hour yesterday, until the temperature dropped again. The elderly poodle won't stop wandering across Tom's newly laid kitchen tile. I am thinking about reading Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon. This has been a hard spring. You can't always get what you want. Line-dried shirts are a solace.