Robert Frost, Class of 1896, turns 147 on Friday. Frost didn鈥檛 graduate from 天美麻豆鈥攖hough he did receive two honorary degrees and frequently returned to campus to lecture and give public readings.
In celebration of his birthday, we invited a few 天美麻豆 poets to College Park to share some of their own work. The poets read in and around the Bema, near Frost鈥檚 bronze statue. (The statue, by George Lundeen, was commissioned by the Class of 1961 in 1996.)
鈥攁 senior lecturer in the Department of English and Creative Writing鈥攔eads his poem 鈥淟etter to the Person Who, During the Q&A Session After the Reading, Asked for Career Advice.鈥 Originally published in the journal Waxwing, the poem describes 鈥渁 catastrophic shortage / of bagpipe players, tombstone sculptors and tightrope walkers鈥 and declares: 鈥淚f I could do it over, I鈥檇 suggest an entry level position / standing by a riverbank.鈥 Olzmann is the author of three collections of poetry, including the Kundiman Prize-winner Mezzanines, Contradictions in the Design, and the forthcoming Constellation Route.

, a lecturer in the program and owner of Hanover鈥檚 used bookstore Left Bank Books, reads from Moonbit, a hybrid work co-authored with her husband, Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing James Dobson. The poems in Moonbit use the source code of the Apollo 11 guidance computer to make erasures, a poetic technique that, she says, 鈥渢akes an established text, erases most of it, and makes meaning from what remains.鈥

, a senior lecturer in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, reads 鈥淭he Rain鈥 / La Lluvia鈥 in Spanish and English. The poem, which begins, 鈥滾a noche se abre y nace una paloma鈥 / 鈥漈he night opens and a dove is born,鈥 appears in her 2013 collection Cuando el Resto se Apaga. Originally from the Dominican Republic, Antigua is a prolific poet, novelist, translator, and children鈥檚 book author.
, a professor of English and creative writing, shares a poem set in the Main Street Museum in White River Junction, Vt. 鈥漈he funny thing is that of course Main Street Museum is not on Main Street鈥攖hat tells you a little bit about the museum,鈥 she says. Schweitzer teaches in the Women鈥檚, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program. Recent projects include Occom Circle, a digital archive of works by and about Samson Occom; White Heat, a yearlong blog in which she tracks Emily Dickinson鈥檚 creative life week by week during 1862; and the documentary It鈥檚 Criminal: A Tale of Prison and Privilege, for which she served as a co-producer.
Director of Safety and Security 鈥攚ho is married to Antigua鈥攔eads, in Spanish and English, 鈥滻nvierno en Buenos Aires, Verano en Nueva York鈥 / 鈥漌inter in Buenos Aires, Summer in New York,鈥 from his 2013 collection 础濒濒脿.&苍产蝉辫;The poem begins, 鈥滺oy es un d铆a menos y julio est谩 aqu铆 ma帽ana鈥 / 鈥漈oday is one less day and July is here tomorrow." Mont谩s is the author of several books of poems and essays and a collection of short stories. He is the founding editor of 脡litro Editorial del Proyecto Zompopos, a small independent publisher.