Frost Farm Celebrates 10th Year of Hyla Brook Reading Series

Frost Farm Conference on Metrical Poetry in June 

DERRY, NH, April 25, 2018 – The Robert Frost Farm kicks off its 10th year of the Hyla Brook Reading Series on Thursday, May 17, 2018, 6:30-8:30pm with featured poet David Davis and Hyla Brook Poet Bob Moore. 

David Davis has been a member of the Powow River Poets of Newburyport, Mass., since 2005. He is currently the Poet-in-Residence at the Mass. Audubon's Joppa Flats Eduction Center. He has published three books of poetry: Crossing Streams on Rocks, Joppa Flats, and The Joy Poems. The Joy Poems have been described as "an instruction manual for feeling more joy in life." Davis will read primarily from The Joy Poems at The Frost Farm. 

Hyla Brook Poet Bob Moore will also read. Moore has been writing poetry and songs since the early 1990’s. He self-published a collection of poems in 1997 entitled, “A Bridge with a View.” In 2009, he released a second collection of poems entitled “Unexpected Colors,” published by Beech River Books. A third collection of poems and songs, “Body and Soul,” is scheduled for release in the spring of 2018. By day, Moore works as a science teacher at Pelham High School. 

The event launches this year's series of nationally acclaimed poets reading in the intimate setting of Robert Frost’s barn. The season also features appearances by: 

·      Friday, June 15 — Melissa Balmain is the 2018 Frost Farm Prize Judge and Editor of Light, America's premier journal of comic verse. Her poetry collection Walking In on People (Able Muse Press) won the Able Muse Book Award.

·      Thursday, July 12 — January Gill O’Neil, the executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival and a teacher at Salem State University, is the author of Misery Islands (CavanKerry Press, 2014), winner of a 2015 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence, Underlife (CavanKerry Press, 2009) and Rewilding (CavanKerry Press, 2018). A recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, her poems and articles have appeared in American Poetry Review, New England Review, and Ploughshares, among others.

·      Thursday, Aug. 9 — Marilyn Nelson’s Carver: A Life in Poems (2001) won Newbery Honors, Coretta Scott King Honors, and others. A Wreath for Emmett Till (2005), How I Discovered Poetry (2014), and My Seneca Village (2015) received similar acclaim. The Poet Laureate of Connecticut (2001-2006), she has won the NSK Neustadt Award and the NCTE Award for Excellence in Children’s Poetry. She is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and Poet-in-Residence of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

·      Thursday, Sept. 13 — Dudley Laufman. While enrolled at the Stockbridge School of Agriculture in Amherst, MA. Laufman intended to become a dairy farmer but developed an interest in poetry. A dance caller from the age of eighteen, Laufman began with lyrical and prose poems for his first book of poetry, I Hear Ringing Reels (1962). At age 87, Laufman is still fully engaged as a dance caller, poet, and musician. He plays melodeon, harmonica and sometimes, when his fingers allow, fiddle. 

The series, held in the Frost Farm located at 122 Rockingham Rd (Rt 28), is free and open to the public. An Open Mic follows the readings and all audience members are invited to share their work. 

Frost Farm Conference

The June reading highlights the winner of the Annual Frost Farm Prize for metrical poetry, and is the kick off event for the 4th Annual Frost Farm Poetry Conference on June 15-17, 2018. 

Founded in 2015, the conference provides two days of intense instruction by award-winning poets including featured reader Melissa Balmain, along with William Baer, Bill Coyle, Len Krisak, Alfred Nicol, and Deborah Warren. Daniel Brown is the 2018 Frost Farm Poet-in-Residence and will provide individual critiques. Claudia Gary will chair a panel on “Music and Poetry.” 

The instructors will immerse participants in the art and craft of formal poetry writing, valuable skills for both free verse poets and formalists. Through generous support, this special weekend has been modestly priced for all participants. For more information or to register, please visit: http://www.frostfarmpoetry.org. 

Starting in May, the Hyla Brook Poets’ monthly writing workshop will meet on the third Saturday of the month at 10am at its summer home at the Frost Farm. 

About Frost Farm Poetry

Under the leadership of Robert W. Crawford, Derry Poet Laureate, Frost Farm Poetry’s mission is to support the writing and teaching of metrical poetry. The Hyla Brook Poets started in 2008 as a monthly poetry workshop. In March 2009, the monthly Hyla Brook Reading Series launched with readings by emerging poets as well as luminaries such as Maxine Kumin, Sharon Olds and Richard Blanco. From there, the Frost Farm Poetry Prize for metrical poetry was introduced in 2010, with the Frost Farm Conference beginning in 2015. 

For further information, email hylabrookpoets@gmail.com, or visit www.frostfarmpoetry.org or facebook.com/HylaBrookPoets or twitter.com/HylaBrookPoets.