Clearing the Spring, Tending the Fountain

I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;
I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I shan’t be gone long.-You come too.
–Robert Frost

Held each spring, this series of six weekly 2 ¼ hour poetry exploration groups, led by Dodge Poets at sites throughout New Jersey, forms the core of the Dodge Poetry Program’s work with teachers.

Offered free since 1992 to teachers at all grade levels throughout New Jersey, these sessions offer participants the opportunity to re-discover their rich, creative inner lives.

Through broad discussions of the nature of poetry and specific explorations of how we respond to individual poems, Clearing the Spring, Tending the Fountain regularly encourages participants to re-experience their deepest connections to this ancient art. Although sessions include opportunities to compose what might be called acts of language, their goal is not the production of completed poems.
Admission to these groups is free and open to all New Jersey teachers, who may qualify for up to twenty Professional Development Hours.

Invitations to participate and registration materials are mailed to all New Jersey teachers on our teacher mailing list in January of each year.

Clearing the Spring, Tending the Fountain includes an all-day Saturday event involving participants and Dodge Poet group leaders from all the sites across the state and featuring a poet of national distinction. Previous featured poets have included: Sharon Olds, Marie Howe, Mark Doty, Yusef Komunyakaa, Galway Kinnell, Molly Peacock, Thomas Lux, Cornelius Eady, Gerald Stern and Ann Marie Macari, Edward Hirsch, Cecilia Vicuña, Toi Derricotte, Alicia Ostriker, and Li-Young Lee.

On Saturday, April 12, 2008, Tony Hoagland joined Clearing the Spring, Tending the Fountain participants and 15 Dodge Poets for a day-long Common Gathering at Drew University. Following a poetry reading in the morning, attended by all participants, Hoagland led an intimate discussion on the Life of the Poet with a much smaller group of twenty New Jersey Teachers. The day ended with all the assembled teachers and Dodge Poets gathering in Drew’s historic Craig Chapel for Hoagland’s informal reading and discussion of favorite poems by other poets that continue to matter to him. His selection included poems by Genevieve Taggard, W.S. Merwin, Paul Goodman, Anna Akhmatova, Louise Gluck and others.