Court throws the book at Frost home trespassers

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. -- Call it poetic justice: More than two dozen young people who broke into Robert Frost’s former home for a beer party and trashed the place are being required to take classes in his poetry as part of their punishment.

Using “The Road Not Taken” and another poem as jumping-off points, Frost biographer Jay Parini hopes to show the vandals the error of their ways -- and the redemptive power of poetry.

“I guess I was thinking that if these teens had a better understanding of who Robert Frost was and his contribution to our society, that they would be more respectful of other people’s property in the future and would also learn something from the experience,” said prosecutor John Quinn.

The vandalism occurred at the Homer Noble Farm in Ripton, where Frost spent more than 20 summers before his death in 1963. Now owned by Middlebury College, the unheated farmhouse on a dead-end road is used occasionally by the college and is open in the warmer months.

On Dec. 28, a 17-year-old former Middlebury College employee decided to hold a party and gave a friend $100 to buy beer. Word spread. Up to 50 people descended on the farm, the revelry turning destructive.

When it was over, windows, antique furniture and china had been broken, fire extinguishers discharged, and carpeting soiled with vomit and urine. The damage was put at $10,600.

Twenty-eight people -- all but two of them teenagers -- were charged, mostly with trespassing.

About 25 ultimately entered pleas -- or were accepted into a program that would allow them to wipe their records clean provided they underwent the Frost instruction. Some will also have to pay for some of the damage, and most were ordered to perform community service in addition to the classroom sessions. The man who bought the beer is the only one who went to jail; he got three days behind bars.

Parini, 60, a Middlebury College professor who has stayed at the house before, was eager to oblige when Quinn asked him to teach the classes.

Eleven recently turned out for the first of two sessions, with Parini giving line-by-line interpretations of “The Road Not Taken” and “Out, Out --,” seizing on parts with particular relevance to draw parallels to their case.

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” he thundered, reciting the opening line of the first poem.

“This is where Frost is relevant. This is the irony of this whole thing. You come to a path in the woods where you can say, ‘Shall I go to this party and get drunk out of my mind?’ ” he said. “Everything in life is choices.”

“It’s a lesson learned, that’s for sure,” said one of the vandals, 22-year-old Ryan Kenyon, whose grandmother knew Frost. “It did bring some insight. People do many things that they don’t realize the consequences of. It shined a light, at least to me.”