WT’s Texas Poets’ Corner Acquires Rare Frost Volume, Names Scholarship Winners

Copy by Chip Chandler, 806-651-2124, cchandler@wtamu.edu

CANYON, Texas — A rare, autographed two-volume set of the poetry of Robert Frost has been added to the permanent collection of West Texas A&M University’s Cornette Library .

The book, “The Complete Poems of Robert Frost: In Two Volumes,” was unveiled during an open house for the library’s Texas Poets’ Corner on March 30.

The Limited Edition Club series book was signed by Frost, illustrator Thomas Willoughby Nason and printer Bruce Rogers. The edition was released in 1950 and is in the same series of books that Texas Poets’ Corner acquired as an estate gift in 2022 .

The open house also celebrated the winners of the Texas Poets’ Corner poetry and history essay contests.

Poetry winners were Ella DeSpain, a sophomore English education major from Amarillo, for “Due East”; Lane Clavel, a freshman agribusiness and economics major from Roy, New Mexico, for “Home”; and Beana Sebasiao, a junior environmental science major from Amarillo, for “When I Die.”

History essay winners were Cohen Ester, a junior history major from Canyon, for “Following the Tracks: The Odyssey of Mexican Laborers into the Panhandle in the Era of the Mexican Revolution”; and Baden G. Curry, a graduate student in history from Lubbock, for “‘They Darkened the Sky and Ate Everything That Was There’: An Environmental History of the Locust Swarms of 1874-1877.”

Each student won a $1,000 scholarship.

"The Complete Poems of Robert Frost: In Two Volumes" from the Limited Edition Club recently was added to the Texas Poets' Corner permanent collection at Cornette Library.

The Texas Poets’ Corner was established in 2003 in WT’s Cornette Library. In 2021, it was  bequeathed a $2.8 million estate gift  by the late Dr. Jenny Lind Porter Scott, a former Texas Poet Laureate and WT assistant professor of English.

With that funding, library officials are broadening the reach of the Texas Poets’ Corner by sponsoring poetry and history scholarship competitions for students, among other outreach efforts.

More than 300 Limited Editions Club books were donated to Texas Poets’ Corner in 2022 by the estate of Kenneth Seyffert, author of the 2001 book “Birds of the Texas Panhandle.” Seyffert was a self-educated man whose interests included literature, arts, music and ornithology.

The book club was formed in 1929 to offer limited editions of classic titles in small quantities to collectors. The newly acquired Frost book, for example is No. 811 of 1,500 copies.

Porter, who published her first poem at age 14, served as Texas Poet Laureate in 1964 and 1965, was the author of several collections and books, and was named to the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame in 1985.

The Texas Poets’ Corner event helps fulfill WT’s desire to provide access to intellectual resources, insight and wisdom, as set out in the University’s long-range plan, WT 125: From the Panhandle to the World .

That plan is fueled by the historic, $125 million One West comprehensive fundraising campaign. To date, the five-year campaign — which publicly launched in September 2021 — has raised more than $120 million.

Top photo: Texas Poets' Corner student scholarship winners for 2023 are, from left, Lane Clavel, Cohen Ester, Baden G. Curry, Beana Sebasiao and Ella DeSpain.

About West Texas A&M University

WT is located in Canyon, Texas, on a 342-acre residential campus. Established in 1910, the University has been part of The Texas A&M University System since 1990. WT, a Hispanic Serving Institution since 2016, boasts an enrollment of about 10,000 and offers 59 undergraduate degree programs and more than 40 graduate degrees, including two doctoral degrees. The University is also home to the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, the largest history museum in the state and the home of one of the Southwest’s finest art collections. The Buffaloes are a member of the NCAA Division II Lone Star Conference and offers 14 men’s and women’s athletics programs.

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