Dartmouth will join forces with arts and poetry education center The Frost Place to help fund the residential fellowship that is awarded each year to an emerging American poet, according to English professor Cleopatra Mathis. The Dartmouth Poet in Residence Program will operate every summer beginning in July and will allow a poet to spend two months writing poetry while living at The Frost Place, poet Robert Frost's former farmhouse in Franconia, N.H.
Due to Dartmouth's recent involvement, announced in a College press release on Oct. 7, the current Poet in Residence Program will be renamed the Dartmouth Poet in Residence Program. The residence was previously funded solely by The Frost Place, but now will be co-financed through a contribution from the College. Mathis declined to enumerate Dartmouth's exact monetary allocation to the residency program.
"This is a small program with big dreams and a great legacy," Frost Place Executive Director Maudelle Driskell said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "Dartmouth's support will provide a better stipend for the poet, more publicity for the program, and help fulfill the mission of the residency."
Mathis, who was a poet in residence at The Frost Place in 1982, said Dartmouth's new monetary involvement signifies a mutually beneficial development to an already strong connection between the two institutions.
Mathis said she originally approached Provost Carol Folt with the Dartmouth Resident Program proposal. Under the new program, a Dartmouth professor will be on the selection committee for the resident poet every year, and professors from any department will be able to use the physical plant for off-campus activities. Poets appointed to the fellowship will serve from July to August.
"We have always maintained a wonderful connection with The Frost Place, but this new agreement will help take the partnership beyond the English department," Mathis said.
The College has a long history of collaboration with The Frost Place, Mathis said. Over Summer term, creative writing professors often encourage students to go to public readings at the Franconia House, and the English department awards an annual William W. Cook internship at The Frost Place and a scholarship for an English major to attend one of the three week-long conferences held there.
"When I came to Dartmouth I was very pleased to find out that Dartmouth laid a very strong claim to the Frost legacy," Mathis said. "When Frost came back as a famous poet, he was extraordinarily important, because at that time there really weren't any creative writing courses or programs and having him in residence at the College was a very strong influence on the students."
Frost was a member of the College's Class of 1896, but left the college after a few months for other pursuits, according to Rauner Special Collections Library's website. Frost often returned to Dartmouth later in life, lecturing as the Ticknor Fellow and in the Great Issues course. He was awarded an honorary degree from the College in 1951.
Rauner houses arguably the largest and most important collection of Frost's works, manuscripts and letters, and the library loans some items from its collection to The Frost Place during the summer when the house opens to the public as a museum, according to Rauner's website.
In 1915, Frost bought the building that now houses The Frost Place, and wrote much of his early poetry there, according to The Frost Place website. Frost lived in the Franconia home with his family mainly during summers for more than 20 years. In 1976, the town purchased Frost's former home and in 1977 the poetry fellowship was started, according to the website.
