Synopses & Reviews
Forward by Donald HallVolume 1 of a two volume millenium collection of literary gifts including poems, essays, reminiscences and photographs honoring Robert Frost, poetry, art, and community from 24 prominent American poets, each of whom was selected to live in Robert Frost`s Franconia, New Hampshire home. Included are:Katha Pollitt, Robert Haas, Gary Miranda, William Matthews,Mary Jo Salter, Cleopatra Mathis, Dennis Johnson, Sherod Santos,Kathy Fagan, Christopher Gilbert, Pattiann Rogers, John Engels,Julie Agoos, Rosanna Warren, Stanley Plumbly, Robert Cording,Sharon Bryan, Mark Halliday, Luci Tapahonso, Jeffrey Skinner,David Graham, Sue Ellen Thompson, Mary Rueffle, Mark Cox Excerpt of Forward by Donald Hall: `When Robert Frost was introduced as a farmer poet, he stuck out his hands, palms up: these aren`t a farmer`s hands, he would say. Famously, he declared that once a man had made a metaphor, it unfitted him for other work. Frost had his chosen work, and we are thankful for it. He consecrated his whole life to the art of poetry. When I met him, in August of 1945 he seemed to rise from the ground like a stone figure. He was not stone, but he endured with the firmness of granite, obdurate in devotion to the art he loved. `.Young poetry is the breath of parted lips. For spirit to survive, the mouth must find how to firm and not to harden.` To firm and not to harden. In Franconia`s Frost Place, young poets learn to firm their mouths without hardening their hearts. From its beginning in 1977, the Frost Place has celebrated the ongoingness of American poetry. Great poems were written in this house. Poetry flourished there then and it flourishes there now.