Robert
Frost
Foundation
Enewsletter
Dear
Friend of Frost,
Please join us in Lawrence the weekend following
for the 2009 Annual Robert Frost Festival on Fri/Sat October 23-24.
Mark Schorr
Executive Director
2009\frost\festival
On Friday, October 23 and Saturday October 24, please join* two programs with poets and teachers will further connect contemporary poetry and education to Robert and Elinor Frost's experiences in Lawrence and Derry.
This year's Robert Frost Festival has a special in-service
Friday program for teachers in the Greater Lawrence area on
Friday
October 23
at the Lawrence Library* from 10.30am- noon.
Come
and hear Lesley Francis give a talk about her mother Lesley's journals and
early education by poetry, an approach that her grandmother Elinor Frost
and her grandfather Robert Frost used as a part of the children's at-home
schooling while on the Derry Farm.
_______________________________
Dr, Francis' biographical study, Robert Frost: An Adventure in Poetry, 1900-1918, is available in paperback (Transaction Publishers).
Saturday October 24
at the Lawrence Library* from 1pm- 4pm.
Come
and hear Mark Schorr shed some new light on the Frosts in Love through a
reading of Frost's first chapbook, "Twilight" and A Boy's
Will. Learn which poems were written in Lawrence and how they
reflect a modern love story. Then hear Megan Grumbling, winner of
the 2004 Frost Award read from her new manuscript and share some of your
own favorite Frost with the festival audience.
Finally, hear Jarita Davis, fresh
from the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, give her take on Frost and
Contemporary Poetry. Davis will then announce the winning poem of the 2009
Frost Award, and reveal the other poems on her short list for poems most
in the spirit of Robert Frost.
____________________________
* If you are not able to travel to Lawrence, we will conduct an online discussion of some of the poems and festival topics in November. To join this discussion, click on the "Sound of Sense" link in the lower left hand corner of the Frost Foundation web site and sign in to the blog. --.RFrostED
Frost Press
Release Frost
Posters
Frost Festival
Schedule
Friday,
October 23, 2009 Schedule
10.30 Welcome, light refreshments and
introductions
10.45-11.45 Dr. Francis' talk "Early Education By Poetry" followed by questions and answers
11.45 Ray Landry and guests. How to bring a Robert Frost Poetry Bee to your middle school or how to add a Poetry Out Loud program to your high school.
Lesley Lee Francis is the granddaughter of Robert Frost. Having retired from the professional staff of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in Washington, D. C., she continues teaching and writing. Currently she lives in Arlington; her three daughters and six grandchildren live nearby. Dr. Francis received her A.B. degree from Radcliffe College and her Ph.D. in Romance Languages from Duke University. She became a professor of Spanish language, literature, and history at a number of colleges and universities and ran a summer program in Spain. She has lectured and published extensively on her grandfather.
Frost Festival
Schedule
Saturday,
October 24, 2009 1.00-115
A Welcome by Ray Landry, Chair of the Frost Board.
1.15-1.30 A musical rendition of Frost's early poetry.
1.30-1.45 Karen Kline's recap of Friday's in-service day with Lesley Lee Francis, Frost's granddaughter.
1.45 Mark Schorr's talk on Robert and Elinor's love and a new reading of a cycle of love poems in Frost's first published book, A Boy's Will
2.10 - 2.30 Megan Grumbling, Winner of the 2004 Frost Award, returns to the festival to read from a new manuscript very much in the spirit of Robert Frost.
2.30 - 2.45 Favorite Frost poems from the audience.
2.45 - 3.05 A walk-through the library exhibit area, refreshments, and book signings
3.10-4pm Jarita Davis gives a talk on Frost and Contemporary Poetry and announces the winning poem of the 2009 Frost Award and the other short-listed poems.
Mark Schorr has served as Executive Director of the Robert Frost Foundation since 2004. He teaches English and American Literature at Cambridge College in Lawrence. His new chapbook is "Conscious Explanations" (Pen and Anvil Press) and recent poems have appeared in Fulcrum 6. The material in "Robert and Elinor" is an extension and expansion of material presented at the Derry Farm Summer Literary Series.
Megan Grumbling was the winner of the 2004 Robert Frost Award. Her first chapbook is "To And From Deepening." Most recently, she has been the recipient of the Poetry Foundation's Ruth Lilly Fellowship in 2007-8.
Jarita Davis, is author of the chapbook, "There Should Be More Water." Recently Yusef Komunyakaa named her manuscript "As If Returning Home" as a finalist for the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, and she will participate in the Cave Canem reading at the 2009 Massachusetts Poetry Festival. She delighted a Frost Foundation audience with her reading at Cafe Azteca last February.