Kevin Durkin Wins 5th Annual Frost Farm Prize
Winner reads at Frost Farm June 12
May 21, 2015, DERRY, NH -- The Trustees of the Robert Frost Farm in Derry, NH, and the Hyla Brook Poets today announced that the winner of the
5th Annual Frost Farm Prize for metrical poetry is Kevin Durkin of Santa Monica, Calif., for his poem, "Meteor Crater."
The prize was judged by prize-winning poet Josh Mehigan. Durkin receives $1,000, publication in
The Evansville Review and will be a featured reader at The Hyla Brook Reading Series at the Robert Frost Farm in Derry, NH, on Friday, June 12, 2015, 7:00pm. The awarding of the Frost Farm Prize will kick off the first annual Poetry at the Frost Farm: Writing in Meter and Form Conference (June 12-14, 2015).
Commenting about this year’s winning poem, Mehigan said, “’Meteor Crater’ is unmistakably about the stark beauty and sublime power of the natural world. Its author skillfully plays stress and syntax against meter and line to create an appropriate naturalism. Because it’s a monologue, its language must also be credible as speech, and as the speech of a particular, stoically fatalistic person. The genre calls for a degree of realism unusual now in poetry, and the poem furnishes it. It is my pleasure to award the 2015 Frost Farm Prize to Kevin Durkin for ‘Meteor Crater.’”
Kevin Durkin’s poems have appeared in
Poetry, New Criterion, Yale Review, and the anthologies Poetry Daily, Able Muse Anthology, Irresistible Sonnets, and Measure for Measure. Finishing Line Press published his first collection of poetry, Los Angeles in Fog, in 2013. Currently the managing editor at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, he resides with his wife and two daughters in Santa Monica.
Durkin said this about winning the Frost Farm Prize: “Robert Frost has long been my favorite poet, and since so many of his best poems were written on his Derry farm, winning the Frost Farm Prize is especially meaningful to me. I am honored to be associated with a poet whose work has so often inspired my own."
The judge read all 476 anonymous entries and, in addition to selecting the winner, chose five poems for special recognition as 1st Runner-up and Honorable Mentions:
First Runner-up:
"August, 1963” by Rob Wright of Philadelphia, PA.
Honorable Mentions:
“Summer of the Sisterhood Clinic” by Debra Bruce of Chicago, IL
"Pink Sky”” by William Leo Coakley of New York City, NY.
“On Visiting My Monument at Night” by Meredith Bergmann of New York City, NY
"For a Dog” by Ryan Wilson of Baltimore, MD
About the Frost Farm’s Hyla Brook Poets
The Frost Farm was home to the poet and his family from 1900-1911.Robert Crawford and Bill Gleed started The Hyla Brook Poets group in 2008. In addition to a monthly workshop, the group organizes the monthly Hyla Brook Reading Series held from May through September in Frost’s barn. The Series features emerging poets as well as luminaries such as Maxine Kumin, David Ferry, Sharon Olds and Linda Pastan.
To hear about next year’s contest or for more information on the Hyla Brook Reading Series, please visit
http://www.frostfarmpoetry.org/readingseries/ or Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/HylaBrookPoets, or Twitter at
https://twitter.com/HylaBrookPoets
5th Annual Frost Farm Prize Winner, Runner-up, & Hon. Mentions
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