Faculty, alumni, students and members of the Upper Valley community gathered together in Sanborn Library on April 15 to hear readings of Robert Frost poems. While attendees were invited to read their favorite Frost poems, the celebration centered on seventh grade students from Crossroads Academy in Lyme, N.H., each of whom read a poem they had selected.
Though Frost attended Dartmouth for less than a term as a member of the Class of 1896, he later returned to lecture in the College’s Great Issues series from 1947 to 1962. Members of the Class of ’61 who attended those lectures were among those present at this year’s event.
The poetry reading was founded more than a decade ago by Crossroads Academy middle school English teacher Steve Glazer and English and creative writing professor emerita Ivy Schweitzer. The event has become a longstanding annual commemoration of Frost. This year, English and creative writing professor Alysia Garrison organized the event following Schweitzer’s retirement.
Garrison opened the event by describing its goal as bridging the gap between students and community members.
Deven Carkner ’28 began the readings with a recitation of his own work, “Ode to Robert Frost,” which he had written for Garrison’s ENGL 23: "Romantic Literature: Aesthetics and Ideology from the French Revolution to Frankenstein" course.
After Carkner read his poem, Glazer called students to the front and invited them to read their selections. Students chose from three Frost poems: “Mending Wall,” “The Road Not Taken” and “After Apple-Picking.”
Garrison said the event has grown over the years.
“We’ve been lucky to host Gordon Clapp, Emmy Award-winning local actor and Frost impersonator, to perform his Robert Frost monologues,” Garrison wrote in an email to The Dartmouth.
Attendees filled couches and chairs arranged on both the first floor of the library and the balcony above. The turnout exceeded available seating.
According to Garrison, the first 36 students to arrive received copies of Edward Lathem ’51’s “The Poetry of Robert Frost.”
Ruby Ray Godley, the five-year-old daughter of Dartmouth professors James Godley and Min Young Godley, was among the children who participated in the reading as part of her kindergarten class at Crossroads. She recited Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” her favorite of the three poems students could choose from, according to Min Young Godley.
Godley said she was proud to see her daughter perform and praised the event’s sense of community.
“There was such a warm and nice community all getting together with the shared passion with Robert Frost's poems, so just being in that space together, appreciating the work and supporting each other, that was really great,” Godley said.
Carkner reflected on watching children recite Frost in front of such a large crowd.
“It was really inspiring to see these really young kids get up there, be brave, face their fears and be passionate about poetry,” Carkner said.
The event brought Dartmouth students and Upper Valley community members together through a shared appreciation for Frost’s poetry.
“I think it’s everything that Dartmouth is all about: How do we share ideas?” said Carkner. “That’s the whole point of a college, to gather people that are intellectually curious and put them in the same room as each other.”
After the readings, Glazer brought his students to the Robert Frost statue near Bartlett Tower. The statue depicts Frost writing “Mending Wall,” offering a final stop that tied the celebration back to the poet’s campus legacy.
Garrison emphasized Frost’s lasting place in Dartmouth and New England history.
“All students who matriculate at Dartmouth should learn that Robert Frost, the only poet to win four Pulitzer Prizes for poetry, who is renowned for his depictions of the rural New England life that Dartmouth students encounter and who possesses the rare status of a ‘public literary figure,’ has deep and lasting connections to Dartmouth College,” Garrison wrote.
