The 2007 issue (Issue #17) of The Robert Frost Review is now available! Projected publication date for the 2008 issue (Issue #18) is April 2009.

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The latest issue of FULCRUM features three new, unpublished talks by Robert Frost ("The Claims of Poetry, May 9, 1944"; "The Most Dangerous Phrase in America, May 12, 1952"; and "The Natural and Supernatural Bounds of Science, May 17, 1954") edited with commentary by James Sitar.

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Modern Language Association
December 27-30, 2008
San Francisco, CA

More information on the upcoming MLA convention is forthcoming.

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American Literature Association
May 22-25, 2008
San Francisco, CA

Robert Frost's Final Ascent to National Poet Laureate 1958

Panel I: Frost and His Peers
Organized by the Robert Frost Society
Chair: Camille Roman, Washington State University
Friday, May 23 (8:00 - 9:20 AM)

1. "'The Grasshopper' and the 'Rat': Robert Frost and Marianne Moore," Patricia Willis, Yale University
2. "E.A. Robinson and Frost," Scott Donaldson, The College of William and Mary
3. "Stevens and Frost," Douglas Tedards, Pacific University
4. "Frost and Pound, London & Washington, Beginning and End," Hsui-ling Lin, National Taiwan Normal University

Panel II: Frost and the 1950s
Organized by the Robert Frost Society
Chair: Camille Roman, Washington State University
Saturday, May 24 (2:00 - 3:20 PM)

1. "Frost: A 1950s Political Wit," Kristen Gravitte, Francis Marion University
2. "Frost: From the Bishop-Lowell Letters," Thomas Travisano, Hartwick College
3. "Theorizing Frost's Christmas Cards," Timothy O’Brien, U.S. Naval Academy
4. "Frost's Designs on Religious Belief," Deirdre Fagan, Quincy University, & Robert Seltzer, Western Illinois University

The business meeting for the Robert Frost Society will commence immediately following the second panel (Saturday, May 24, from 3:30 to 4:50 PM).

A complete program draft is available in Microsoft Word Document (.DOC) format on the ALA website. You may download the file by clicking here.

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Frost Society & Historic "Firsts" At 2007 MLA (submitted by Camille Roman)

The Frost Society held not only its traditional panel at MLA 2007 in Chicago, but also initiated several newsworthy "firsts," with its program theme Frost's Final Ascent to the National Poet Laureate, 1958. In cooperation with the Ernest Hemingway Society and Foundation, the society cosponsored the first discussion of Frost and Hemingway together as well as the first scholarly event co-organized by two MLA author societies. The Frost/Hemingway Roundtable was chaired by Suzanne del Gizzo (Chestnut Hill College), program director of the Hemingway Society and Foundation, and initiated and moderated by Camille Roman (Washington State University). Hsiu-ling Lin (National Taiwan Normal University) explored Frost's and Hemingway's loyalties to Ezra Pound in spite of their disavowal of his politics that led to treason charges against him. Scott Donaldson (The College of William and Mary) followed with an examination of the chronology of events around the incarcerated Pound's release from St. Elizabeth's Hospital spearheaded by Archibald MacLeish with Frost and Hemingway. Then George Monteiro (Brown University) discussed Hemingway's influence on Frost's poetry. Thomas Travisano (Harwick College) ended the panel discussion with his overview of Elizabeth Bishop's and Robert Lowell's views from their letters of the two literary giants overshadowing their generation. More information is available at the website specifically co-developed by del Gizzo and Roman for the roundtable.

In another noteworthy event, the Frost and Hemingway societies co-hosted a reception attended by about fifty scholars—ranging from members of the two sponsoring societies to officers of the Elizabeth Bishop Society, the Children's Literature Association, the Robert Lowell Society, the F. Scott Fitzgerald Society, the Modernist Studies Association, the Ezra Pound Society, the Marianne Moore Society, the Jack London Society, and other MLA groups—in honor of the roundtable at MLA at the Intercontinental Hotel. This open cash bar was the first cosponsorship of a MLA social event by two author societies. An informally organized small supper immediately followed the reception for the two Fulbright scholars Hsui-ling Lin and Grzegork Kosc (Lodz University, Poland), who had been invited to speak on Frost at the conference. The traditional Frost panel chaired by Roman focused on The Poet, The Man, The Image in Frost's final ascent to poet laureate. Douglas Basford (Johns Hopkins University) examined the poet's drafting of "Kitty Hawk" from 1956 to 1958. Then Chuck Clark (independent scholar) presented his memoir about his childhood friendship with Frost entitled "How Frost Didn't Win the 1954 Nobel." Kosc completed the panel with his theoretically-informed investigation of 1950s media images of Frost. Marit MacArthur (California State University, Bakersfield) led off discussion with her respondent's report. A coffee hour at the Hyatt Regency completed the society's schedule of MLA events with twelve session members continuing the panel's conversations about Frost.

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Concerning the recent discussion provoked by the publication of the first volume of The Notebooks of Robert Frost (Harvard University Press), the Robert Frost Society agrees wholeheartedly with the following view from Harold Bloom made on January 24, 2008: "I am using the The Notebooks of Robert Frost edited by Robert Faggen. Doubtless in so vast an editing job, there indeed must be a fair number of errors of transcription, but the statements I have read denouncing the book seem to me to be extreme and self-seeking."