About the nonprofit
Since the auctions and sale in 2019, At Eagle Pond, has been established as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit for the purpose of preserving as a local and national historic landmark this New Hampshire farm where Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon lived and wrote.
The organization is committed to being steward of the farm and ensuring that what gives it meaning continues here. Among other activities, the nonprofit opens the house to visitors; offers a range of public programs; illuminates how living at the farm defined and deepened Don’s and Jane’s work; invites conversation about why poetry matters; and provides opportunities for poets and others to take up their own work here.
Original furnishings that remain, and those similar, reference both the early life of the farm and the lives Don and Jane brought here and lived here. Because the farm was the very ground of their lives and work, it has, more than anything besides their work, come to represent them, what they wrote, and their commitment to writing and to place--while standing, also, as a reminder of how poetry can grow from what may seem ordinary and familiar to speak of truths that are both close and universal.
Preservation of Eagle Pond Farm is not only about care of the house and barn and farm or retaining historical appearance. It is equally about sustaining what holds meaning here and ensuring that continues. By providing that the farm will continue to be a place where writers can do the work writers do, it is, as well, about supporting what that endeavor bestows on its audience of one or many when it travels beyond the desk (or farm table) where it begins.
The barn at Eagle Pond Farm is an early example of a type known as a Yankee barn, which became the most common barn form in nineteenth century New England. The lower level of the barn incorporates, too, an indoor silo that was quite innovative at the time of construction. Photograph by Steve Booth.
