Fond Reflections: An Interview with Former MFA Co-Directors

By Patrick Meighan  

This June, Jacqueline Gens, a founder of NEC's MFA program, retired from her decade-long tenure as co-director. The summer also marked the last residency for Jim Harms, co-director with Jacqueline since 2009. Jim was recently awarded the position of West Virginia University’s English Department chairman, preventing him from continuing in his position at New England College. The influence Jim and Jacqueline have had on the program will continue to be felt. Students and faculty alike hope both remain part of the NEC family and visit future residencies—perhaps to rekindle past workshops—"Kaddish," Jacqueline? The Sublime Lie, Jim?

Carol Frost

Faculty member and distinguished poet Carol Frost has stepped up to serve as interim director. Author of eleven books of poems, Carol also holds the Theodore Bruce and Barbara Lawrence Alfond Chair of English and directs Winter With the Writers, A Festival of the Literary Arts at Rollins College in Orlando, Fla. Her 2010 collection of poems, Honeycomb, was the recipient of the Gold Medal in Poetry from the Florida Book Awards. Her poems have appeared in four Pushcart Prize anthologies, and she has been a recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. The Poets’ Prize and Elliston Award committees have also honored her work. Carol Frost founded and for fifteen years directed the Catskill Poetry Workshop, and she served as poetry editor for Pushcart Prize XXIII in 2003 and as a poetry judge for the 2005 National Book Award.

Tygerburning caught up the program's other co-founder, Chard deNiord, when he read from his latest book, Sad Friends, Drowned Lovers, Stapled Songs:  Interviews and Reflections on Contemporary American Poets, at Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Cambridge, Mass.

Chard founded the program with Jacqueline in 2002. A Vermont resident most of the year, he teaches at Providence College. He reflected on founding the MFA program with Jacqueline. "It was both of our ideas to work as equals, as opposed to a director and an assistant," Chard said. Jacqueline brought her administrative talents to the program, but she also is a poet—and became one of the MFA program's earliest students as well. A couple of years after the program's birth, she went through as a student while serving as co-director, "which was a little tough," Chard said.

One of Jacqueline's most impressive qualifications was serving as a personal assistant to Allen Ginsberg. "He would never have called her an assistant," Chard said of Ginsberg. "They were friends and on the same wavelength as Buddhists. She did everything for him he couldn't do for himself."

Chard deNiord and Jim Harms

Jacqueline and Chard came to the program from different traditions in poetry, "two different 'transmissions,' she would have said," according to Chard. 

Jacqueline's contribution was profound. She founded "Tygerburning," and brought to the program such faculty as Eleni Sikelianos and Anne Waldman.

Chard left NEC in 2007, before Jim began. He didn't want to be the type of ex director who meddled. "I really wanted to give him the freedom and time to create his own vision there, while preserving the legacy," Chard said.

"I was so heartened by his presence there, his kindness, his humor, his attention to detail," Chard said.

Here now are Jacqueline's and Jim's reflections on their experience at New England College:

Tygerburning to Jacqueline Gens: What is your fondest memory of your time at NEC?

Jacqueline: "It must have been our second graduation ceremony when one of our graduates Melissa Severin 'channeled' a Sylvia Plath 'Bee' poem that just had us all collectively sobbing. Or more recently when Ilya Kaminsky recited Mandelstam's famous poem 'The Age' in Russian. Anne Waldman's performance workshop—a sense of historic lineage; deep strains of poesia flowing through our blood thus a kind of transcendent community. There are many such magic moments I cherish."

Tygerburning: What are working on now?

Jacqueline:  "Making handmade paper from recycled sacred texts with a group of friends who have founded the Khandroling Paper Cooperative."

Tygerburning: What are you reading?

Jacqueline:  "Books like Helen Heibert's "Papermaking with Plants."

Tygerburning: How are you planning to stay involved in the poetry community?

Jacqueline:  "Teach workshops online and live in Contemplative Poetics; develop homegrown books (literally) for me and some friends to publish our work through the Khandroling Paper Cooperative studio I am part of. Finish a couple of manuscripts -- 'Dragons' Crease' and 'The Mansion of Elements.'

Tygerburning to Jim Harms: What is your fondest memory of your time at NEC?

Jim:  "There really are too many to list.  I think just sitting around before and after events (at the residencies) talking to students and fellow faculty about poetry was pure pleasure.  I also loved being a part of the final semester thesis projects, watching all those wonderful manuscripts come together so beautifully."

Tygerburning: What are working on now?

Jim:  "Just writing poems. My next book will be a 'New & Selected,' so I'm not thinking too much about how the various poems fit together just yet."

Tygerburning: What are you reading?

Jim:  "Adam Zagajewski's new book, as many translations of Transtromer as I can find (I'm teaching him in the fall), the uncollected Schuyler (at last!), Alan Furst's new novel, Anne Tyler's new novel (just finished that one), Ann Beattie's 'The New Yorker Stories' (slowly), other I'm forgetting.

Tygerburning: Tell us a little about your new position.

Jim:  "I'm chairing the Department of English at West Virginia University, where I've been teaching for nearly twenty years.  It's a big department (the biggest in the college), more than 60 faculty and instructors plus more than that many graduate student instructors. So it's a huge job, all day every day, but I have a big investment in this department so I'm enjoying it."