The Sphere and the Frost Farm Prize

Maryann Corbett · #1 05-09-2012, 12:07 PM

I'm copying all of this from the Facebook page of the Hyla Brook Poets, with some extra emphasis on a couple of names. Congratulations to Richard and to Nick!

Second Annual Frost Farm Prize Winner Announced

May 9, 2012, DERRY, NH -- The Trustees of the Robert Frost Farm in Derry, NH, and the Hyla Brook Poets are pleased to announce the winner of the Second Annual Frost Farm Prize for metrical poetry is Richard Meyer of Mankato, Minnesota, for his poem, "Fieldstone."

The prize was judged by poet and literary critic Richard Wakefield. Meyer receives $1,000 and will read at The Hyla Brook Reading Series at the Robert Frost Farm in June 2012. His winning poem will be published in The Evansville Review.

Commenting about this year’s entries, Wakefield said, “The entries showed an enormous range of style and subject, but ‘Fieldstone,’ with its sharp focus and unfussy mastery of form, stood out. In it, a speaker looks at his land and sees himself reflected, realizes that his ‘mastery’ of the land is in fact a compromise; in making the soil do as he wants it to do he in turn is shaped by it. The poem also sounds good. Its music arises from the subject and form acting on one another, beginning and ending with enjambed couplets that are separated by a series of end-stopped lines, in the same way that the smooth flow of the speaker's inner life is sometimes broken, or reshaped, by the demands of the outer world.”

Meyer, a former English and humanities teacher, lives in the home his father built in Mankato, a city at the bend of the Minnesota River. His poems have appeared in various print and online publications, including Able Muse, 14, SCR, The Classical Outlook, and The Flea.

“The Frost Farm Prize for metrical poetry continues to grow with more than 550 entries this year from the United States and as far away as Israel and Australia," said Robert W. Crawford, co-founder of the Hyla Brook Poets and a Frost Farm Trustee. "The quality of the work was outstanding - I don't envy the difficult job Richard Wakefield, our judge, must have had selecting a winner. We look forward to hosting Richard Meyer at the Frost Farm during the Hyla Brook Reading Series in June and Richard Wakefield in July, when he gives a talk on Robert Frost during the Literary Series."

Wakefield read all the anonymous entries and, in addition to selecting the winner, chose three poems for special recognition as honorable mentions. This year, all three honorable mentions, "Permanent,” “Hunter,” and “In Snow," were from the same poet: Nicholas Friedman of Ithaca, NY.

Michael Cantor · #2 05-09-2012, 12:30 PM

Great!! Congratulations to both of you! Richard, I look forward to meeting you and hearing you in June. And Nick - a runner-up trifecta! That brings being a contenduh to an entirely new level.

Cally Conan-Davies · #3 05-09-2012, 12:57 PM

WOW. This is brilliant news - utterly brilliant and thoroughly deserved! Wonderful, Richie - wonderful!!

And WOW to Nick as well! What a stunning achievement!