2020 Frost Farm Prize for Metrical Poetry
2020 FROST FARM PRIZE ANNOUNCEMENT
First, I want to thank everybody who entered the 2020 contest! Your entries provide much needed support to the Hyla Brook Poets and the Trustees of the Robert Frost Farm in their mission to promote the teaching and writing of metrical poetry--the kind of poetry Frost wrote. Below is the 2020 prize announcement:
DERRY, NH, May 12, 2020 — The Trustees of the Robert Frost Farm in Derry, NH, and the Hyla Brook Poets today announced that the winner of the 10th Annual Frost Farm Prize for metrical poetry is Jennifer Davis Michael, for her poem, "Forty Trochees."
The 2020 Frost Farm Prize judge, Rachel Hadas, selected the winning poem after reading nearly 700 anonymous entries.
Jennifer Davis Michael, the 2020 Frost Farm Prize Winner
Hadas said this about the process and the winning entry, “Judging a poetry contest is a matter of sorting, seeing what sticks, whittling down some more, seeing what remains. ‘Forty Trochees’ survived all such processes; indeed, it seems to improve with each rereading. It's a clever and original poem, not one syllable too long; the trochees work; the effortless-seeming rhyme feels inevitable and yet also provides an added dollop of pleasure. Finally, despite the poem's skipping rhymes, the contents of ‘Forty Trochees’ somehow darkened for me on each fresh reading. The poem twinkles, but it's ominous, nevertheless. Maybe it was that sense of ‘nevertheless’ that caught and held me.
The Frost Farm Prize winner receives $1,000, and will be a featured reader at The Hyla Brook Reading Series at the Robert Frost Farm in Derry, NH.
Jennifer Davis Michael is Professor and Chair of English at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, specializing in British Romanticism. Her poems have appeared in such journals as Mezzo Cammin, Think, and Southern Poetry Review, and her chapbook, Let Me Let Go, came out in January from Finishing Line Press. She has also published a book of criticism, Blake and the City (Bucknell University Press, 2006).
She said, “I am deeply honored to have my poem selected by Rachel Hadas, and I’m delighted to know that metrical poetry is alive and well. While I often work in form, this poem was a departure for me in terms of style. I’m encouraged to try other innovations.”
The winning poem by Jennifer Davis Michael:
Forty Trochees
Have you found her
I don’t know you
Hitting grounders
Let me show you
Children sleeping
Carry water
Someone’s weeping
Here’s your daughter
Put your shoes on
It’s my birthday
Mass confusion
Shorter workday
Horseshoe tossing
Melanoma
Border crossing
Sweet aroma
Poet’s market
Oxymoron
Drive or park it
There’s a war on
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In addition to selecting the winner, the judge chose the following Finalists from the 700 entries (being a finalist is quite an accomplishment, congratulations!).
Finalists (in alphabetical order):
“Janus Unhinged” by Amy Bagan from Wellfleet, MA.
“Isfahan” by Armen Davoudian from Stanford, CA.
“Get it Right” by Jamey Hecht from Beverly Hills, CA.
“The Sloth” by Leslie Monsour from Los Angeles, CA.
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About the 2020 Frost Prize judge:
The 2020 judge, Rachel Hadas is the author of many books of poetry, essays, and translations. Her most recent collection is Poems for Camilla, published in 2018; in the same year her verse translations of Euripides' two Iphigenia plays were published. The recipient of awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry and the O.B. Harrison Prize from the Folger Shakespeare Library, Hadas is Board of Governors Professor of English at Rutgers-Newark, where she has taught for many years.
Previous Prize Winners and Judges:
2019 David Southward of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for “Mary’s Visit” — Judge Bruce Bennett
2018 Susan de Sola of the Netherlands, for “Buddy” — Judge Melissa Balmain
2017 Caitlin Doyle of Cincinnati, Ohio, for "Wishes" --Judge Deborah Warren
2016 James Najarian of Auburndale, Massachussets for "Dark Ages" -- Judge David Rothman
2015 Kevin Durkin of Santa Monica, California for "Meteor Crater" - Judge Joshua Mehigan
2014 Rob Wright of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for "Meetings with my Father" - Judge Rhina Espaillat
2013 Caki Wilkinson of Sewanee, Tennessee, for "Arts and Crafts" - Judge Catherine Tufariello
2012 Richard Meyer of Mankato, Minnesota, for, "Fieldstone" - Judge Richard Wakefield
2011 Sharon Fish Mooney of Coshocton, Ohio for "Dimly Burning Wicks" - Judge Bill Baer
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About the Frost Farm’s Hyla Brook Poets
The Frost Farm was home to the poet and his family from 1900-1909. The Hyla Brook Poets, a 501(c)(3), started in 2008 as a monthly poetry workshop. In March 2009, the Hyla Brook Reading Series launched with readings by emerging poets as well as luminaries such as Maxine Kumin, David Ferry, Linda Pastan, and Sharon Olds. The Frost Farm Prize was introduced in 2010, followed by the inaugural Frost Farm Poetry Conference in 2015.
