Stay Here. Feel This—Making Poems of Praise and Loss

Poems gift us the chance to lavish our attention on specific memories, and to honor the people and moments that have most profoundly shaped us. In this supportive, generative poetry workshop, we’ll read contemporary odes (poems of praise) and contemporary elegies (poems of lament) that exquisitely evoke a variety of emotions. In particular, we’ll look at praise poems which strike chords of sadness, and we’ll read poems about loss that are full of joy. As we do so, we’ll create our own poems that explore these territories with a light touch. This workshop is open to writers and poets at any level. All you need is a little love for words and a willingness to wonder.

MEET THE INSTRUCTOR

Scott Frey is a poet and educator who grew up in Western Pennsylvania and teaches English at Pine Meadow Academy in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. He and his wife, Meryl, run a non-profit charity, The Charlotte Frey Foundation, whose mission is to help children with multiple handicaps and life-threatening illnesses and their families improve their quality of life. His book, Heavy Metal Nursing, won the Tampa Review Prize for poetry. Among other places, his work has been published or is forthcoming in Passages North, december magazine, The Adroit Journal, Bellevue Literary Review, New York Quarterly, and The Missouri Review, where he was awarded the Perkoff Prize for poetry. His hybrid chapbook, Strange Vigil, won the Black River Chapbook competition hosted by Black Lawrence Press, and debuted in September, 2025. He and his family live in Granby, Connecticut. Visit him online at scottfrey.org 

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