Director's Letter page

Letter from the Program Director, Carol Frost

A favorite event during each MFA residency is the faculty colloquium, which illustrates our philosophy of poetry as possibility. The faculty, one-by-one, in reading then talking about a favorite poem, reflects the dynamics of an American Poetry that includes the earliest English lyrics, several centuries of continental American verse, and the newest evolutions, translations, and versions inspired by poetry from across time and across the globe.

As the first all-poetry MFA program, we continually reinvent our relation to poetry itself, finding that an art so fully rooted in common origins continues to grow. This is why as an NEC student you’ll have the opportunity to work in new media poetry and poetics, in performance, in the newer forms with their different sets of constraints on language that help raise language into ceremony, in translation, and in prose.

You can also write pantoums if you have a mind to.

In traditional and generative workshops, individual conferences, and correspondence—with a personalized study plan and reading list each semester for guidance—you’ll explore your own shifting relationship to poetry. We work with what you bring to the program, and provide in return our years of experience as artists and teachers.  It’s a productive arrangement.

Take a look around this web site, at our new offerings, our new events . . . take a look at our fresh look.

As you can see, we feature our students prominently.  We’re proud of them, of the extraordinary diversity of experience they bring to our program, and of the many (many) accomplishments they’ve amassed over the years, which are too numerous to list here.

Please check out our program blog at:

http://www.tygerburning.blogspot.com/

for the latest on our students.  It’s worth pointing out that more than 100 poets have graduated from our program, and that their poems appear regularly in journals such as Ploughshares, Poetry, The Paris Review, Crazyhorse, The Cimarron Review, Ping-Pong, The Marlboro Review, The Atlanta Review, Web del Sol, Jacket; on the web in such places as Poetry Daily; and in books from Alice James, Dancing Girl Press, Caven Kerry, and other presses.  There are a lot of good reasons to recommend the New England College MFA Program, but the most important is the success of our students.

Also find us on our new Facebook page to listen to the conversation about poems, books, and poetics carried on by our community of students and mentors. Join in.

http://www.facebook.com/NewEnglandCollegeMasterOfFineArtsPoetryProgram

And if you’re looking for other reasons to apply to our program, think of the accomplishments of our core and visiting faculty, past and present: James Harms, Ilya Kaminsky, Brian Henry, Anne Waldman, Eleni Sikellianos, Li Young Lee, Thomas Lux, Maxine Kumin, Jean Valentine, Tara Rebele, Katie Farris, Lynn Emanuel, DA Powell, Jane Mead, Gerald Stern, Judith Hall, Marilyn Nelson, Michael Waters, Joan Larkin, Alicia Ostriker, Jack Gilbert, Galway Kinnell, Charles Simic, Grace Paley, Kimiko Hahn, Fannie Howe, Martin Espada, Forrest Gander, Toi Derricote, Peter Everwine, Chard deNiord,  Jeff Freidman, Judith Vollmer, Russel Edson, Ed Ochester, and Gail Mazur among others.

New England College works hard to make it possible for every student we accept to attend the MFA Program in Poetry, offering scholarships and financial aid.

Think of us as the NEW New England College MFA Program in Poetry, where faculty don’t simply teach, they help students reach for greatness.  We’re still here, and we’re better than ever. 

The very best, 

Carol Frost, Program Director