I've had something on my mind for the past day, which maybe doesn't need explication, but then again maybe it does.

This will be my second summer conference away from the Frost Place, yet for a variety of reasons--nearly all of them involving other people's privacy--I haven't talked directly on this blog about my reasons for leaving my position and the result of that departure on the conference and myself. I'm still not going to talk publicly about the minutiae of why I resigned, other than to say that I remain on cordial terms with past and current staff and was in fact invited last fall to bring the conference back to the Frost Place.

I worked for more than a decade as the director of the Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching (and served for longer than that as associate director, visiting faculty, and participant in various programs). During Covid, I co-founded and directed the online Frost Place Studio Sessions, which allowed me to step more fully into the teaching of poetry rather than focusing primarily on the teaching of teachers. These were incredible opportunities. No other poetry program of such stature would have likely offered me these chances, given my lack of a master's degree and my quiet presence on any kind of national stage.

I will always cherish the Frost Place, always miss it. That said, over time my experiences there had come to resemble those of that well-known allegorical frog in boiling water. I was doing my jobs; I was doing other people's jobs; I was constantly smothering fires of one sort or another, and yet the conflagration would not be quenched. The situation was untenable, but still I kept at it because I couldn't imagine what my life would be without the Frost Place.

Finally, two summers ago, I had to face the truth. The conference was no longer a good fit for the Frost Place. With trepidation, I reached out to the administrators at Monson Arts with a proposal for a new version of my long-running program. And they welcomed me in.

***

This summer Monson Arts will host the second Conference on Poetry and Learning. The change in name--from teaching to learning--was deliberate. While the older version of the conference had been founded specifically for teachers, this one would work to draw in a larger variety of participants: teachers, yes, but also poets and other seekers who don't center their work in a classroom. Another major change was that suddenly Robert Frost was no longer our mage; this means that his work is no longer the centerpiece. Finally, Monson Arts is not a poetry center, as the Frost Place is. It's an arts center.

All of these shifts have allowed me to radically enhance the content of the program, even while retaining its familiar intimate, collegial character. In short, I have become a far better teacher since I moved the program to Monson.

The setting is very different from the Frost Place. But on every metric it is more comfortable: excellent on-campus housing, world-class food, a clean and inviting classroom space. For long-distance travelers, it's equivalently annoying to get to . . . but not more annoying. Instead of the White Mountains, we've got a gorgeous lake and the Hundred Mile Wilderness. 

A number of Frost Place alums have made the move to Monson with me. Yet I get the sense that a few are speaking as if the program no longer exists--as if its glory years are behind it; as if all we have are memories. This makes me sad because it's so completely untrue.

In fact, the move has energized me. It has also shown me what I wasn't able to do before: focus 100% of my attention on the well-being of the program, the participants, and our art. For this summer's session Teresa and I, along with our guest faculty, have constructed a free-wheeling, intense, interwoven schedule focusing on collaboration across artistic disciplines, across history, across selves. It's been enormously intellectually challenging . . . and thus entirely thrilling. I would not have had the time, the financial support, or the physical space to undertake such a project at the Frost Place. But Monson Arts has opened these doors for the conference.

This letter, too, is open, so if you know anyone who needs to read it, please share. I have been distressed, perhaps needlessly, about mistaken assumptions. The Conference on Poetry and Learning is thriving at Monson Arts. I welcome you to join us there.