Our final news roundup of the week takes a look at the Robert Frost museum in Vermont and the headline act for this year’s Causley Festival.

Robert Frost Museum Reopens

The Robert Frost Museum in Vermont is due to reopen following a change of ownership and a period of closure. The museum originally opened to the public in 2002 when it was run by the non -profit organisation Friends of Robert Frost, last year ownership passed from the group to Bennington College.

The building that houses the museum was originally purchased by Frost himself he had plans of being an apple farmer, and he lived there with his family. The house passed from Frost to his son Carol and he moved into a farm located just across the road Carol, who like his father struggled with depression, took his own life in 1940. The house remained in the family until it was later sold to a private owner.

The simple stone and timber house together with 7-acres of land, a barn and some heirloom apple trees that formed Frost’s orchard all form part of the museum. It is here that Bennington College plan to hold poetry readings and other events; the museum will however remain open to the public.

During the nine years that Frost lived in the property he wrote “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, which is one of his most famous poems. He also won the first of his four Pulitzer Prizes during this period of his life. Frost claimed that nature helped him to concentrate and his poems are a real evocation of rural life, as well as sometimes dark allusions

The museum is home to photographs of Frost and his family, woodcuts by the artist J.J. Lankes, a facsimile of the manuscript for “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening”, who was the illustrator of Frost’s books. Some of the walls of the house have quotes from frost painted on the walls, including the epitaph “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world,” which can also be seen on his tombstone in the First Congregational Church cemetery at nearby Bennington.

Causley Festival to be Headlined by Poet

The star of this year’s Charles Causley Festival will be the Mersey poet, 60’s pop star and long-standing presenter of “Poetry Please” on the BBC – Roger McGough.

On May 31, McGough, who was a friend and student of Causley, will return to Launceston to help launch the festival. The festival will run until 3^rd June. During the festival McGough will be performing with Little Machine a band with a great reputation for setting well know poems to rather upbeat musical arrangements.

Other acts appearing at the festival will include the nature writer Miriam Darlington and the comedy foursome Sweet’n’Sour who will be headlining on Saturday night. This is the ninth year that the festival will be taking place and it promises to be a fantastic mix of poetry, music and exhibitions. There will also be a food and drink market taking place in the town.