For many Americans, the poetry of Robert Frost conjures images of bucolic life in New England — trees and forests, mountains, snow, walking trails and moonlit nights.
So why are dozens of the nation’s most-acclaimed poets spending the 150th anniversary of Frost’s birth in downtown San Diego later this month? They are attending the Robert Frost Sesquicentennial, a five-day conference of Frost poetry readings, discussions and workshops taking place March 20 through 24 at the San Diego Central Library and at UCSD Park and Market in East Village.
The conference, free to attend and welcome to all, is the largest and most ambitious event in the history of the Robert Frost Society, which is now headquartered at San Diego Central Library.
Founded in 1978, the Society is dedicated to the research and study of the late poet’s work. Five years ago, longtime society member Jim Hurley, a retired businessman in Rancho Santa Fe, and Robert Bernard Hass, the society’s executive director in Western Pennsylvania, worked with the San Diego Library Foundation and a group of local civic and business leaders to establish a permanent home for the society at the library.
Elisa New, director and host of the PBS series “Poetry in America,” is a featured speaker at the Robert Frost Sesquicentennial conference March 20-24, 2024, in San Diego.
(Courtesy of the Robert Frost Society)
The sesquicentennial celebration will include daily poetry workshops, roundtable discussions, lectures, happy-hour readings, book signings, an open-mic reading and more.
Elisa New, director and host of the PBS series “Poetry in America,” will chair the closing-day panel on “The Mending Wall,” Frost’s famous poem about the human compulsion to build barriers with our neighbors. Other featured speakers include Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith and Pulitzer Prize finalist Bruce Weigl; former state poets laureate Dana Gioia (California) and Amit Majmudar (Ohio); Frost biographer Jay Parini; and multiple Frost scholars, professors and local poets.
Hass, a Frost scholar, author and professor at the Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, said more than 80 people have signed up for all of the events, or individual events, at the conference — but there’s room for up to 150. The reason for moving the society from an academic institution to a public library in 2019 was a goal of making the writings of Frost more accessible to all.
“Our dream would be to have the place filled with secondary students, college students, class field trips,” Hass said. “That was really important to Jim and me and our founders and sponsors.”
Rancho Santa Fe’s Jim Hurley, seated at center next to poet Robert Frost in 1959.
(Courtesy)
Hurley, who had the fortune to meet Frost and hear him read his own poems at a small gathering at the University of Iowa in April 1959, said meeting Frost was one of the most memorable experiences of his life.
“Robert Frost wouldn’t have minded being a magnet to these great poets coming (here) 150 years after his birth. He would have loved the fact that people were coming not just to celebrate his life but even more broadly the invitation it provides to the world of poetry. He wanted the world of poetry to be accessible,” Hurley said.
Born in San Francisco on March 26, 1874, Frost won four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry and the Congressional Gold Medal and he is recognized as one of the 20th century’s greatest American poets. Among his most famous poems are “The Road Not Taken,” “The Mending Wall,” “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening,” “Birches,” “Nothing Gold Can Stay” and “Acquainted with the Night.” He was also a social activist. At the age of 87, he traveled to the Soviet Union in the summer of 1962 to carry a message of peace from U.S. President John F. Kennedy to Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev. He died just four months later in a Boston hospital from prostate cancer.
Poet Robert Frost interviewed following his return from a trip to the Soviet Union, Sept. 10, 1962. Frost told newsmen he has a message from Soviet Premier Khrushchev to President Kennedy.
(Jacob Harris / Associated Press)
Despite Frost’s passing 61 years ago, Hass said his poetry remains relevant today.
“Unfortunately with the advent of social media and other electronic media, we’ve kind of severed our connection to the natural world. Robert Frost was a big proponent of going out in the woods to think about and contemplate your place in the universe and learn from the natural world about how you can apply some of its lessons to your own life.
“Another way Frost is relevant is that in some ways he’s a precursor to what we may call cognitive behavioral therapy today,” Hass said. “There’s this idea of the ‘Frostian turn,’ the belief that one has within one’s self the inner resources to exercise mental activity to change your outlook on your particular life. This is sprinkled throughout his poetry. Especially for young people who are confronted with an epidemic of depression today, Robert Frost can provide a great sense of solace.”
Robert Frost Sequicentennial
When: 3 to 10 p.m. March 20; 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. March 21-23; 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. March 24
Where: San Diego Central Library, 330 Park Blvd., downtown; Park & Market 1100 Market St., downtown
Admission: Free
Schedule and registration: robertfrostsociety.org/150years