Our Spring Poet: Robert Frost (20th March - 20th June)

[Leslie]

I like this one, which I almost used when I did the Monday Poem since it is seasonally appropriate (at least here in the Northern Hemisphere!):

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

[Elsbeth]

Yes, it is beautiful!

[Gill]

I thought that this was interesting about The Road Not Taken:

' 'The Road Not Taken' is one of Frost's most famous poems. Yet only a tiny minority of those who read and re-read it know that it is a poem about Edward Thomas. The close friendship between Frost and Thomas is one of the most compelling aspects of the Dymock story. The poem was drafted at The Gallows towards the end of 1914, though it was altered before its publication in America where it appeared in The Atlantic Monthly magazine, in August 1915. It then appeared as the first poem in Frost's third book, Mountain Interval, published in America in 1916.
Frost maintained that the poem "was never intended as a serious effort" but was rather "a mild satire on the chronic vacillating habits of Edward Thomas". Because of the confusion this poem has caused, and because it illustrates the importance of irony in understanding much of Frost's work, his official biographer Lawrance Thompson wrote at length about 'The Road Not Taken' in his introduction to Frost's Selected Letters.
"The inspiration for it came from Frost's amusement over a familiar mannerism of his closest friend in England, Edward Thomas. While living in Gloucestershire in 1914, Frost frequently took long walks with Thomas through the countryside. Repeatedly Thomas would choose a route which might enable him to show his American friend a rare plant or vista; but it often happened that before the end of such a walk Thomas would regret the choice he had made and would sigh over what he might have shown Frost if they had taken a 'better' direction."
Looking back and regretting previous choices was not Frost's way to approach life, and he teased Thomas about having such regrets. Back in America Frost put the final touches on the poem and sent it to Thomas without comment, "yet with the expectation that his friend would notice how the poem pivots ironically on the un-Frostian phrase, 'I shall be telling this with a sigh'. As it turned out, Frost's expectations were disappointed. Thomas missed the gentle jest because the irony had been handled too slyly, too subtly."
Thomas's letter to Frost, after receiving the poem in April 1915, made it clear that he failed to see either Frost's irony or himself as the subject of the poem. Frost wrote again, and in June Thomas apologised for his mistake but seemed also to insist that the poem, which he discussed with his wife Helen, worked at another level: "I read 'The Road Not Taken' to Helen just now & she liked it entirely, & agreed with me how naturally symbolical it was."
When Frost read the poem to an academic audience in Boston in May 1915, something similar happened, as Frost reported to Thomas in a letter: "I suppose my little jest in the poem is too much between me and myself. I read it aloud. . . at Tufts College and while I did my best to make it obvious by my manner that I was fooling, I doubt if it wasn't taken pretty seriously. Mea culpa."
But Elizabeth Sergeant says that ". . . the poem's last lines and indeed all its substance have, as I see it, a subterranean connection with his experience on that Plymouth wood road, and with the inner compulsion that in 1912 at the age of 38 sent him forth to try a new fortune on strange shores." The 'Plymouth wood road' refers to a letter Frost wrote in February 1912, just before making the difficult decision to move to England. In the letter he describes "two lonely cross-roads" that he had walked several times; "neither is much travelled" so Frost was surprised to see a man looking "all the world like myself" approaching him "to the point where our paths must intersect". Readers of Edward Thomas's poetry will recognize the similarity between this experience of Frost's and what Thomas describes in 'The Other'. It seems inconceivable that the two never discussed this notion of seeing someone like yourself approaching you.'

I hadn't realised the poem's connection with Edward Thomas.

[Chrissie]

Isn't there a poem about a wall that keeps falling apart? I think it is in The Road Not Taken and Other Poems. That one is my favorite.

Poetry really doesn't work with me.......except for Frost's.

[Chrissie]

Isn't there a poem about a wall that keeps falling apart? I think it is in You Come Too. That one is my favorite.

Poetry doesn't usually work for me, except for Frost's.

[Bionic Jean]

Gill - what a fascinating story! Thanks! Where's it from?

It poses an ethical question to me. Presumably this led to a falling-out between the two poets. Does our subsequent enjoyment of the poem make up for that? Which is the greater good?

Ooops - could be off on the wrong thread here...

[Gill]

Jean wrote: "Gill - what a fascinating story! Thanks! Where's it from?

It poses an ethical question to me. Presumably this led to a falling-out between the two poets. Does our subsequent enjoyment of the poem ..."

If you look at the link I put in message27 about the Dymock poets, and then click on Robert Frost, it's part of the info there.

[Gill]

Chrissie wrote: "Isn't there a poem about a wall that keeps falling apart? I think it is in You Come Too. That one is my favorite.

Poetry doesn't usually work for me, except for Frost's."
Yes, Chrissie, it's called 'Mending Wall'. Here's a link:

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mendin...

[Bionic Jean]

Gill, you are the Queen of Links :)

[Chrissie]

Thanks, Gill. I will go read it again.

[Jenny]

ohhh, good question Jean. But then I suppose Frost took it as gently poking fun, not realizing that Edward Thomas would not appreciate being poked that way in public? However I think he 'recovered' quite quickly it seems and his wife Helen is absolutely right in saying that this poem can be read entirely differently.

Thanks for that link Gill and I agree, we might be the queen of links (possibly Gillink? Leslie would know how to make a crown icon that goes with that ;))

[Gill]

This is the start of one of my favourite poems by Frost 'After Apple-picking':

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.

[Bionic Jean]

Wonderful evocation of the time of year there, Gill. I can see why it's a favourite. How glad I am though that it's almost the exact opposite at the moment here :)

[Timothy]

Gill wrote: "I thought that this was interesting about The Road Not Taken:

' 'The Road Not Taken' is one of Frost's most famous poems. Yet only a tiny minority of those who read and re-read it know that it is..."

It is interesting. From what I have read, Frost was a very complicated person, and not very nice. But somehow his poetry transcends the man himself; if Frost’s intent was mainly satirical, (and in spite of what Frost himself says, I’m not sure it really was), it seems that the poem clearly transcends its origin. My favorite lines are:

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

So much in two very simple lines.

[Leslie]

Gill wrote: "I thought that this was interesting about The Road Not Taken:

' 'The Road Not Taken' is one of Frost's most famous poems. Yet only a tiny minority of those who read and re-read it know that it is..."

This sounds in keeping with what he wrote about intellectual activity (in his letter to the president of Amherst quoted in post #33). Subtle humor that will likely escape the casual reader seems to be his style.

Great story, thanks Gill!

[Bionic Jean]

I've now bought another selection of Robert Frost's poetry this one. No doubt it will have some in common with the selection here I'm reading on Kindle, but with 77 poems surely there'll be some new ones... Very excited :D

I do rather wish they weren't "selections", but am delighted to find some in Large Print at all! Alert for Gill maybe? It is using all this month's book budget for me, and coming from the USA, but well worth it :)

[Gill]

Jean wrote: "I've now bought another selection of Robert Frost's poetry this one. No doubt it will have some in common with the selection here I'm reading on Kindle, but with 77 poems surely there..."

Thanks, Jean. I'll look into this. I've not bought any large print books yet. Though I'm starting to use them more from the library. It's been mainly kindle so far. Btw, hope you are enjoying your kindle.

[Bionic Jean]

Gill - Maybe the library would get it for you, so you can have a look? Yes, thanks, I love my Kindle and Samsung tablet :) Most of the Large Print books I buy are from Library sales, or a literacy charity called "Betterworldbooks" who sell ex-library books at 1p upwards plus £2.80 postage. I usually stick to the 1p ones! And "good" condition. The publishers are reluctant to sell them to individual purchasers, being geared up to libraries, although they sometimes will.

[Bionic Jean]

I'm really enjoying the different styles Frost employs. Those written around the time of The Road Not Taken are blank verse, and yet one I've just read, "Design" has an incredibly formal structure when you analyse it. (It's a sonnet using iambic pentameter - but then the final 6 lines have a separate tight and perfect rhyming structure of their own.)

I'm wondering if Frost is laughing up his sleeve at us here. First of all it seemed a deceptively simple poem about a spider, then rapidly became musing about whether there is an intelligent design behind things, and in the end we become aware of the very intelligent design behind the structure of the poem ;)

Others are vastly different again in their form and metre. I'm looking forward to reading more.

[Bionic Jean]

Laugh aloud funny? Robert Frost? Well try this one Haec Fabula Docet

I guarantee you will giggle :D

[Leslie]

Jean wrote: "Laugh aloud funny? Robert Frost? Well try this one Haec Fabula Docet

I guarantee you will giggle :D"

I agree that Frost has a sense of humor - many of his poems that I like exhibit it! I do think it possible that he was "laughing up his sleeve" in the poem Design or at least amusing himself.

[Bionic Jean]

Sometimes his humour isn't always obvious to me, but I am a newbie :) I love it when I do "get" it. And "Haec Fabula Docet" was almost like a limerick!

[Bionic Jean]

Here's my review of the selection I have on Kindle. I've written a little bit about each poem and said which are my favourites :)

[Leslie]

Here is one of Frost's later poems that also shows his humor I think:

Why Wait for Science

Sarcastic Science she would like to know,
In her complacent ministry of fear,
How we propose to get away from here
When she has made things so we have to go
Or be wiped out. Will she be asked to show
Us how by rocket we may hope to steer
To some star off there say a half light-year
Through temperature of absolute zero?
Why wait for Science to supply the how
When any amateur can tell it now?
The way to go away should be the same
As fifty million years ago we came --
If anyone remembers how that was.
I have a theory, but it hardly does.

[Bionic Jean]

"Sarcastic Science"! I like that :)

I wonder if he wrote that one as a result of a conversation he had had with the astronomer Harlow Shapley too, as he did with "Fire and Ice".

[Leslie]

Jean wrote: ""Sarcastic Science"! I like that :)

I wonder if he wrote that one as a result of a conversation he had had with the astronomer Harlow Shapley too, as he did with "Fire and Ice"."

It was written post-Hiroshima, so I always feel there is a bit of nuclear holocaust hovering in the background (as in the "we have to go/ or be wiped out" bit).

[Timothy]

Before we move on to the Summer poet, I would to post what I think is one of Frost's best, "Acquainted with the Night."

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

[Leslie]

I finished North of Boston the other day. While I didn't like that collection as much as Mountain Interval, it did have several poems I liked very much especially "Mending Wall". The main reason I didn't care for this collection as much is that it had mostly longer narrative poems (the famous "The Death of the Hired Man" for example).

[Jenny]

As we come to the last few days of Robert Frost as our seasonal author I wondered whether you had some thoughts on his language, his themes, the development of his poetry over the years and his particular form or style or just anything in general you'd like to share as a sort of round-up.

I also wanted to share this article I found, recently published in 'New Republic'. It's very much worth a read and it hits on a lot of subjects we've talked about over the last weeks and months.(Plus it taught me a new English word: "ulteriority") http://www.newrepublic.com/article/11...

[Leslie]

Interesting article Jenny; thanks for the link!

I am not good at poetic forms or analysis -- I am like those plebians who don't know art but know what they like. I did think that the article was informative but can't really judge how "correct" the author was.