The Frost Place is a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

and nonprofit educational center for

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

located at

Robert Frost Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in the United States. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloq ...

's former home on Ridge Road in

Franconia Franconia (german: Franken, ; Franconian dialect: ''Franggn'' ; bar, Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: ''Fränkisch''). The three administrative regions of Lower, Middle and Upper Fr ...

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

, United States. The property was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1976.

History

According to local family lore, poet Robert Frost spotted this property on the west side of Franconia's Ridge Road in 1915 while looking for a home in the area. He purchased it from farmer Willis Herbert, for whom he supposedly procured an adjacent property. The house is 1½ stories in height, with a long front facade covered by a porch. The facade affords fine views of the

Franconia Range The Franconia Range is a mountain range located in the White Mountains of the U.S. state of New Hampshire. It is the second-highest range of peaks (after the Presidential Range) in the White Mountains. Franconia Ridge is a prominent ridge which f ...

and

Mount Lafayette Mount Lafayette is a mountain at the northern end of the Franconia Range in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, United States. It lies in the town of Franconia in Grafton County, and appears on the New England Fifty Finest list of the most ...

. Frost and his family lived in the house until 1920, and spent their summers there for nearly twenty years. The Frost Place was founded in 1976 when the farm was purchased by the town of Franconia, restored, and given its name, opening as a museum in 1977. Since 1977, the Frost Place has awarded a resident poet award to an emerging American poet, which includes a stipend and the opportunity to live and write in the house during the summer. Beginning in 2013, The Frost Place began offering an annual

chapbook A chapbook is a small publication of up to about 40 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch. In early modern Europe a chapbook was a type of printed street literature. Produced cheaply, chapbooks were commonly small, paper-covered bookle ...

prize, with the winning chapbook published by Bull City Press. Past winners include Jill Osier,

Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet (born January 31, 1968) is an American poet. Stonestreet's second book, ''The Greenhouse,'' was awarded the 2014 Frost Place Chapbook Prize and published by Bull City Press in August 2014. Her first book, ''Tulips, Water, ...

, Anders Carlson-Wee,

Tiana Clark Tiana Clark is an American poet. Clark is the author of ''Equilibrium'' and ''I Can't Talk About The Trees Without The Blood.'' Her work has been recognized with a Rattle Poetry Prize and a Pushcart Prize. Biography Clark received her B.A in A ...

, Yuki Tanaka, and Cassandra Bruner.

Conferences

The Frost Place sponsors
Conference on Poetry

Poetry Seminar
and
Conference on Poetry and Teaching.
The Conference on Poetry is directed by poet

Gabrielle Calvocoressi Gabrielle Calvocoressi is an American poet, editor, essayist, and professor. Life and career Gabrielle Calvocoressi was born in 1974 in central Connecticut. Their family owned movie theaters, including a drive-in, in several small towns across ...

, with poet Ross White serving as Associate Director. The Poetry Seminar is directed by poet Patrick Donnelly. The Conference on Poetry and Teaching and the Writing Intensive is directed by poet Dawn Potter; associate director is poet and teacher Kerrin McCadden.

Management

A board of trustees assumed responsibility for the management of the museum and associated programs, and Donald Sheehan served as executive director until 2005. In 2006, the trustees appointed

Jim Schley Jim Schley is an American poet, teacher, editor, and theater artist. He is author of two poetry collections, most recently, ''As When, In Season'' (Marick Press, 2008), and has had his poems published in many literary journals and magazines incl ...

to be Sheehan's successor. From the fall of 2008 until April 2011 the trustees managed The Frost Place. In April 2011, Maudelle Driskell was named executive director. In 2018, poet Jacob Rivers was named assistant to the director.

Resident poets

References

External links