Applications are now open for the 2021 Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching! Given the slow vaccine rollout, we have made the decision to hold it virtually once again. But last year's was wonderful, and this year's will be even better, now that we're all old hands at Zoom.

This will be my ninth year as director of the conference. Our guest faculty will be BJ Ward, a New Jersey poet who works extensively in the schools; and Nathan McClain, who teaches poetry at Amherst College. Teresa Carson, our dear associate director emeritus, will lead the Writing Intensive; and Kerrin McCadden will return as associate director. As always, we offer scholarships and professional development credits.

Our participants come from a broad variety of backgrounds. Some are teachers, and some are not. Some call themselves poets, and some do not. What they have in common is curiosity, collegiality, and care. If you are longing for this kind of community, please consider joining us this summer.

And let me know if you have any questions or worries about applying. There are some of you out there, my quiet reading friends, who are maybe feeling shy or uneasy about signing up for such a thing . . . maybe telling yourself, "I'm no poet," or "I don't know anything about teaching." And I want to say: this conference is actually exactly for people like you--not because I'm a poetry evangelist or a proselytizer who's trying to lure you into the fold but because the participants themselves have evolved into a magnificently humble collection of intellectual adventurers . . . and I use the word humble with respect and honor, as a signifier of openness, of that Keatsian negative capability--the very opposite of arrogance. Their rare attitude toward discovery is what makes this conference both unique and welcoming. Every year I learn again how fortunate I am to be among them.