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KPBS Midday Edition Segments

San Diego Central Library Is The New Home Of The Robert Frost Society

 August 17, 2020 at 10:49 AM PDT

Speaker 1: 00:00 America's great poet of snowy evenings and good new England fences may seem an unlikely match with San Diego's beach and sunshine culture, but that's not how the international Robert Frost society sees it. This society has found a home at San Diego's downtown central library, a permanent center for the study of frost work midday edition host, Maureen Kavanaugh spoke with San Diego public library, director, Misty Jones, and Jim Hurley, local writer and businessman about how they teamed up to bring the center to San Diego. Here's that interview Speaker 2: 00:34 Now, Jim, it was your idea to bring the Robert Frost society permanently to San Diego. How were you acquainted with the, Speaker 1: 00:43 The condensed version is that I met him in 1959 when I was a writing student and was a guest at the famous Iowa writer's workshop. And Paul angled, the founder of that workshop was acquainted with frost and invited him to come to Iowa city and angle invited a few of the writers at my college to join them. And that's where my adventure with frost began Speaker 2: 01:11 All familiar with Frost's timeless poetry, but what was he like as a person? Speaker 1: 01:16 He was a steel and velvet. That's borrowing a line from Carl Sandburg in his biography of Lincoln, but I can't think of a better description of him. He was kind, he loved students, even at the age of 21. I could tell that he loved to teach and he loved a student poets and writers, and he was also a gruff sometimes not only on the edges, but he blended that in some way that made him magnetic. Uh, and I think those two characteristics are mixed into his poems as well. Speaker 2: 01:55 Now, after many years, Jim, you wrote a piece for the frost society quarterly about your encounter with poet Robert Frost, and then you ask the society how you could do more. What did they tell you? Speaker 1: 02:10 Well, Jonathan Barron, uh, who at the time was the, both the editor of the Robert Frost review and the head of the society. He confessed after a few exchanges that although the society which had been founded in 1978 was very well known in academic circles. It didn't have a sense of place and it didn't have the wide range of reach that perhaps it might deserve. So I asked him if I could, uh, be of help in this and maybe see if we could find a permanent home someplace here in the area. And, uh, he said, absolutely, let's give it a try. Speaker 2: 02:52 He did it at first same in Congress to you to have the San Diego library become the home of the Robert Frost society. For Speaker 3: 03:00 Me, it was really kind of a no brainer when, when it was brought forward, San Diego public library has a rich history of supporting writers. We've done a lot with local authors. We've done a lot of writing workshops and poetry workshops, and I can not think of a better way to continue to promote, you know, what libraries do for literacy than to have someone as significant as Robert Frost. I have a place in San Diego, Misty Speaker 2: 03:29 Items will the library house as part of the society's collection. Speaker 3: 03:33 We have some items from different collectors who have really been collecting, you know, uh, books or poetry from frost, um, documents, and they've generously donated those materials to us. And so I think it's going to be a series of donations as we move forward and really grow this collection. Speaker 2: 03:53 So these are the real items. These are things that scholars can't find on the internet and, and would, would kind of have to come to the center to be able to study. Is that right? Speaker 3: 04:05 So it is a lot of primary documents. So letters from frost, um, different documents, writings of his. So it's, it will be really unique for those scholars and those that are really interested in learning more about him. Speaker 2: 04:21 I wonder if I could ask you to perhaps recite a bit from one of your favorite frost poems, Speaker 1: 04:29 It'd be a pleasure. Uh, this is tree at my window tree at my window window tree. My sash is lowered when night comes on, but let there never be curtain drawn between you and me. They dream head lifted out of the ground and thing next, most diffused to cloud, not all your light tongues talking could be profound, but tree, I have seen you taken and tossed. And if you have seen me, when I slept, you have seen me when I was taken and swept and all, but lost that day, she put our heads together. Fate had her imagination about her. Your head's so much concerned without her mine with inner weather. Isn't that nice? Speaker 2: 05:28 It was. Thank you very much. That's from a, that is the Robert Frost poem tree at my window. What is it about Robert Frost poetry, Jim, that speaks to you? Speaker 1: 05:38 Well, Bob Haas, who's the great head of the society now and a fine writer in his own, right. Has a book that is called going by contrary is about frost and science. And Bob says that frost, what he had, what he calls a poetic vernacular that aspired to the rhythms of common speech. And I think that just captures it. And I think that's what captures people at all levels of learning is that rhythmic cadence, that seizure of simple things and to verse that's what captured me the first time I heard frost poems in a junior high school in Waterloo, Iowa. And it's still what captures me Speaker 2: 06:34 Now, Misty. I know that the pandemic shutdown delayed the grand opening, you were planning of the Robert Frost society at the central library. What are your plans now to introduce the new center to the public? Speaker 3: 06:46 The first thing that we're doing, we've done a lot of press releases. So really letting people know that this is coming, I'm looking forward and hoping that we will be reopened and that we can do, we can do a introduction the right way and the way that it should be done and really celebrating that. This is an addition for now, what we're planning on doing is continuing to engage people online, um, letting them know promoting Frost's poetry and really, you know, getting the word out that this is coming so that when we are open, we'll be ready to invite those people to come in and experience those materials and really planning some, some very interesting and exciting new programming. Jim, Speaker 2: 07:30 You see the frost society center being used by those who visit the center. Speaker 1: 07:36 As Misty said, there are already many, many programs that attract poets and writers to the library, but this will add a, an additional, and we hope the powerful magnetic force to bring people in, to study poems and to study poetry at all levels of learning. And I think if we succeed in doing that, and I know we will, it will broaden the reach of poetry, uh, into the community that was Jim Hurley and library director, Misty Jones speaking with KPBS mid day edition host Maureen Kavanaugh,

The library will serve as a permanent center for the study of Frost’s work. It’s the society's first permanent home, since its founding in 1978.
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