Frost Farm’s 2014 Hyla Brook Reading Series

The latest news from the Hyla Brook Reading Series:

Frost Farm’s 2014 Hyla Brook Reading Series

Opens With Poet Stephen Burt on May 15 

DERRY, NH, April 24, 2014 – The Robert Frost Farm’s 2014 Hyla Brook Reading Series season opens Thursday, May 15, 2014, 6:30-8:30pm with poet, literary critic and professor Stephen Burt. Hyla Brook Poet Stephen Scaer will also read. 

The event launches this year's exceptional series of nationally acclaimed poets reading in the intimate setting of Robert Frost’s barn. The season also features appearances by poets Joshua Mehigan, Kim Bridgford and Sydney Lea. 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. 

The 2014 Hyla Brook Reading Series Features: 

• Stephen Burt, Featured Reader, May 15, 2014
  Stephen Burt, whom The New York Times called “one of the most influential poetry critics of his generation,” is a professor and poet with eight published books including Close Calls with Nonsense (Graywolf Press, 2009), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and The Art of the Sonnet (Harvard University Press, 2010). His new book of poems, Belmont (Graywolf Press, 2013) was featured as one of NPR’s "2013’s Great Reads." Joining Burt for this first reading is Hyla Brook Poet Stephen Scaer. Scaer, a former newspaper reporter and special education teacher at Pelham High School, is a recipient of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award. His poems have been published in Cricket, Highlights for Children, National Review, and First Things. This year Able Muse published his first collection of poems, Pumpkin Chucking. 

• Frost Farm Prize Event, June 12, 2014
  The June reading traditionally features the winner of the Annual Frost Farm Prize for metrical poetry, sponsored by the Trustees of the Robert Frost Farm and the Hyla Brook Poets. Judged by award-winning poet and translator Rhina Espaillat, the winner will be announced in May. 

• Joshua Mehigan, Featured Reader, July 10, 2014
  Joshua Mehigan’s first book, The Optimist, was a finalist for the 2005 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His poems have appeared in many periodicals, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Poetry, which awarded him its 2013 Levinson Prize. His second book is Accepting the Disaster, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in July 2014. 

• Kim Bridgford, Featured Reader, August 14, 2014
  Kim Bridgford is the director of the West Chester University Poetry Center and the West Chester University Poetry Conference, the largest all-poetry writing conference in the U.S. She is editor-in-chief of Mezzo Cammin and the author of eight books of poetry, including Bully Pulpit, Epiphanies, and the forthcoming Doll. 

• Sydney Lea, Featured Reader, September 11, 2014
  Sydney Lea's ten books of poetry include I Was Thinking of Beauty (Four Way Books, 2013) and A North Country Life: Tales of Woodsmen, Waters and Wildlife (Skyhorse Publishing, 2013). A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, Lea is Vermont's poet laureate and the recipient of Rockefeller, Fulbright and Guggenheim Foundations fellowships.

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. For further information, email Robert Crawford at bobik9@aol.com, or visit facebook.com/HylaBrookPoets or twitter.com/HylaBrookPoets