About Martha Rhodes

Martha Rhodes is the author of five poetry collections, most recently The Thin Wall (University of Pittsburgh Press), about which Page Hill Starzinger wrote "this is a poetry of survival: dark, haunted, and strangely—powerfully—luminous" for Kenyon Review. Her poems have been published widely in such journals as Agni, Columbia, Fence, New England Review, Pleiades, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, TriQuaterly, and the Virginia Quarterly Review. She has taught at Emerson College, New School University, Sarah Lawrence College, and University of California at Irvine, and is the formerr director of The Frost Place Conference on Poetry. She is a member of the faculty of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She is the publisher of Four Way Books in New York City.

Martha on Teaching

I love to discover what a poem's intention is as well as possible other routes that a poem might take as it develops—routes that the writer may never have contemplated. Revision doesn't always work for a given poem but by trying different strategies during the revision process, we are able to develop muscles for that poem, and past poems that we want to work on, and future poems. It's an exciting process and thrilling, really—to both lead a poem down a path and be led by the poem. I am interested in the poem's potential, always and working with writers in discovering what their own work might be, or could be, telling them and telling their readers. So, in a nutshell, I love to explore and I love company while doing it—a workshop is a marvelous place to start digging.

Martha on Writing

I do not have a writing schedule. If I am writing, I'm writing. If not, I'm not. I write on one poem at a time and then move to the next and then revise poems already drafted. I do not fret if I am in a dry spell. Writing, in the end, has never let me down.

Frost depicts Franconia

Courtesy of University of Virginia

A map drawn by Robert Frost, in a letter to Walter Prichard Eaton, of the route to his house in Franconia, which begins "Of course if you refuse to come within talking distance I must just do as I have to do and write you a letter (with map of the surrounding country)." The house Frost draws is currently the home of The Frost Place.

On Martha's Bookshelf

What poets/books have you been reading of late, and which book(s) do you return to again and again, and why is it important to you as a writer?

As a publisher, editor, and teacher I read a lot of work that is yet to be published; so much of my reading time is time spent in my office reading submissions and workshop poems. Poems by contemporary writers are very important to me and there are too many to list—poets early on in my career who I still return to are Roethke, Bishop, Whitman, Kunitz—poets who inspired me musically.

What craft books or craft essays stand out to you in particular?

"Poets Teaching Poets" edited by Gregory Orr and Ellen Bryant Voigt

Recurrent by Martha Rhodes

Recurrent

I was aware of the cave’s airiness,
bats beating the currents hot,
the tide pushed up against us.
Fish bombarded my knees and thighs—
No shelf for me to lift up to (every kind of fish
imaginable). You know my aversion to them!
Worse, my terror-- the shiny, wet,
scaly, eye-popping, mouth-opened,
leaping-out-of-water-at-me fish—and the deepening
brine absolutely teemed with them, their sharp teeth glaring—
I counted every one with my eyes closed.
I told myself, They are only an inch long.
They are oblivious to you, you will survive
this, this episode, that’s all it is—the others
are not afraid, so why are you? They’re even enjoying the swim!
Think! Why are you afraid? What sludgy hideousness
happened to you to make you this afraid? Oh, it doesn’t matter.
Swim! Grow up! But then frogs entered the pool
and the water boiled thick with them. Fifty exactly landed on my head,
all at once. You must remember, don’t you? My aversion to them?
Their croaking, their green sliminess, their ability to jump, land,
slide and land again, so of course there were frogs
in the up-to-my-neck-by-now pool. All other things wet
dove in, an explosion of wetness. You also entered,
trillions of you upon my shoulders, between my legs,
spawning in my ears—how bear this one more second knowing
it was only the beginning of the pool’s beginning, and me in it.

Summer Poetry Programs at The Frost Place

Held each year in June, the Conference on Poetry and Teaching is a unique opportunity for teachers to work closely with both their peers and a team of illustrious poets who have particular expertise in working with teachers at all levels. The Frost Place Writing Intensive is a creative addition to the Conference on Poetry and Teaching. The day-and-a-half reading and writing workshop directly follows the Conference on Poetry and Teaching. Led by renowned poet-teacher, Teresa Carson, it gives teachers the opportunity to focus entirely on their own creative growth.

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Poetry Seminar | August 1 - August 6, 2021

Director & Faculty: Patrick Donnelly
Faculty: Martha Rhodes, Rachel Hadas, Allison Joseph

Join a select community of poets for 5-1/2 days at the end of next July and into August to refresh your artistic inspiration in a setting of great natural beauty. Have your poems-in-progress given generous and focused attention in this intimate setting. Our specialty is unparalleled access to a faculty of celebrated contemporary poets, and our goal is to send you home charged up to re-enter your own work.

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We gratefully acknowledge the support of the NH State Council on the Arts.