|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 180
member
|
|
member
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 180 |
Just heard this on the Writer's Almanac. Robert Frost happens to be one of my favorite poets, so thought I'd share.
~gift horse
It was on this day in 1923 that Robert Frost's poem "Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening," was published in the New Republic. He'd written the poem after staying up all night working on a different poem called "New Hampshire" (1923). He said later, "I went outdoors, got out sideways and didn't disturb anybody in the house, and about nine or ten o'clock went back in and wrote ['Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening,'] as if I'd had an hallucination." He said that the first lines of the poem, "Whose woods these are, I think I know, / his house is in the village though," contained everything he knew about how to write.
Poem: "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," by Robert Frost, from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Henry Holt and Co.).
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear Gift Horse: I'm quite ignorant about poetry, but have
enjoyed several of Frost's poems. It surprised me to learn
that he was born in California. I just took a look at his
bio, and couldn't help wondering why he chose to go to
England - what do you thing England had to offer him?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
How about culture, Bill? 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
Thank-you G.H. I'd never read this poem before. It's quite lovely.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear Capfka: I think you needed to go to England for culture more than Frost did.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
Possibly. Unlike you, I'm not old enough to have met the gent to be able to decide for myself ... 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773 |
I've walked in the woods and meadows which inspired Robert Frost, and I contemplated the crisp night which gave birth to Stopping by Woods. It was a stretch of the imagination, though, since I was there in July. The area is still remote and peaceful, and I was rewarded by a visit from a bluebird.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
After thinking about it some more, I'm still surprised that
Frost had the courage to go to England if his only capital
was proceeds from sale of a marginal farm in New Hampshire.
England has precious and plentiful cultural resources, but I don't see how they would have been any help to him.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 180
member
|
|
member
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 180 |
Hi Bill!
I'm not entirely sure why Frost went to England, but I get the feeling it was to get published. Perhaps that market was more open to him. I know he made writer contacts there who seemed to help him.
Just found this:
In 1912, at the age of 38, he sold the farm and used the proceeds to take his family to England, where he could devote himself entirely to writing. His efforts to establish himself and his work were almost immediately successful. A Boy's Will was accepted by a London publisher and brought out in 1913, followed a year later by North of Boston. Favorable reviews on both sides of the Atlantic resulted in American publication of the books by Henry Holt and Company, Frost's primary American publisher, and in the establishing of Frost's transatlantic reputation.
As part of his determined efforts on his own behalf, Frost had called on several prominent literary figures soon after his arrival in England. One of these was Ezra POUND, who wrote the first American review of Frost's verse for Harriet Munroe's Poetry magazine. (Though he disliked Pound, Frost was later instrumental in obtaining Pound's release from long confinement in a Washington, D.C., mental hospital.) Frost was more favorably impressed and more lastingly influenced by the so-called Georgian poets Lascelles Abercrombie, Rupert BROOKE, and T. E. Hulme, whose rural subjects and style were more in keeping with his own. While living near the Georgians in Gloucestershire, Frost became especially close to a brooding Welshman named Edward Thomas, whom he urged to turn from prose to poetry. Thomas did so, dedicating his first and only volume of verse to Frost before his death in World War I.
I know very little about the publishing world, especially from 1914. Maybe going to England and meeting these contacts was a good way to break into the writing world. Likely someone here knows the answer though.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 180
member
|
|
member
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 180 |
Hi Sparteye!
The area is still remote and peaceful, and I was rewarded by a visit from a bluebird.
Cool! I've never been to New England. It sounds lovely and inspiring.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear Gift Horse: Right back to square one. He went to
England on a shoestring. How could he have counted on
acceptance there? Particularly as he was more than a bit
abrasive,and had a talent for alienating people. I'm
tempted to jest that he went to England because he had
made few friends in US.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 180
member
|
|
member
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 180 |
Hey Bill!
I've honestly no idea why he really went to England on a shoestring. I have a book of his complete works, but it doesn't contain a biography. I'll keep looking around and see what I can come up with. It's a good question.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
I'm sure there were many fences that needed mending...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619 |
He went to England on a shoestring.
Shoestring must have gone further in those days, wwh.
Nowadays an abrasive poet is lucky to have shoes on his feet. His verse may be freer, but the cost of travel has gone way up.
A poet's purse is seldom as good as his verse, even at the best of times.
Why did the poet cross the pond? Perhaps he crossed the pond in the hope that his absence would make hearts grow fonder.
The arts are a fickle mistress. When a poet has celebrity, the arts are doting. When not, they are mostly doubting. Talent usually has nothing to do with it.
A poet who makes it abroad can be a sensation back home even if he doesn't actually "make it" there.
Snubbing the arts is often the best way to win them over. [Which may explain why Frost came back over ... and the arts are the better for it in spite of their fickle ways.]
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Prophets are not without honor save in their own country,
but I never heard that said of poets.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
Bill, Frost is certainly not the only person who has packed up his things and moved to some foreign place, different country, different state, different city to find his fortune.
Believers believe, with every fibre they believe. Some of them make it, others don't. He was lucky enough to have made it.
BIT OF AN EDIT BEFORE ANYBODY COMMENTS... Yes I wrote he was LUCKY enough to have made it, and I know some people will scoff at the use of lucky because they believe that hard work is the only way a person can gain success, but I know great believers who've worked extremely hard, yet amounted to nothing. So I believe hard work is not all you need to achieve success. There is a whole mix of things that make you successful and I do believe that a bit of luck tacked on to all those things can will make a hell of a difference.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Too bad we know so little about why Frost left Dartmouth and
Harvard. And so little about his intellectual efforts during
his ten years of operating the farm.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619 |
Prophets are not without honor save in their own country, but I never heard that said of poets.
There is more money in being a prophet than a poet, wwh, and the country pays more honor to profits than to poets.
The same holds true of unprofitable prophets.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Scientology has proved that there is money in establishing
a phony religion.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619 |
the country pays more honor to profits
For those who also speak French, please excuse the repetition.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619 |
Scientology has proved that there is money in establishing a phony religion.Phony or not, the bottom line is profit. 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526 |
I recite this poem often to my kids. It's the first poem that each of them committed to memory.
Slightly ironical: I never liked the poem birches when I was a kid, though when I was very young I used to get in trouble for doing that thing - and now I'm too afraid of heights and too heavy to attempt it. Finally, I appreciate the poem.
k
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Opinions differ, but I find Randall Thompson's setting of this poem in his Frostiana to be nothing short of exquisite.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Last line of Frost's poem "Birches":
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
I can remember swinging birches, but my kids never got to do it. The once prevalent birches are now few and puny
because of leaf miner disease. I am fortunate to have had
much of the best of two worlds. I had hundreds of acres of
woods I could roam in with complete freedom. Before my kids
were old enough to go into the woods, the goddam drug dealers had forced police to put all woods off limit to anybody.
Kids today can have no idea what Frost was talking about.
Nostalgia can be bittersweet.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 180
member
|
|
member
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 180 |
Hi Bill!
You wrote:
I had hundreds of acres of
woods I could roam in with complete freedom.
How lovely! I grew up on an 800 acre farm in the Ozark Mountains. It was a beautiful childhood that taught me the value of nature and conservation. Maybe this is why I've always enjoyed Frost's poetry. He deals with so much that I grew up exploring; though his experiences with wood and animals were in New England.
It's a little more difficult to teach my son the value of ecology on a suburban lot, but I'm giving it my best shot.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619 |
It's a little more difficult to teach my son the value of ecology on a suburban lotYou can teach him a lot more on a lot less than 800 acres, gift horse. Less is more, especially in the environmental movement.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
i grew up in the bronx, (right next to the park that houses the small cottage that EAPoe rented when he lived in the bronx.
about half the park was paved over. the other half trees and straggly grass.
the area, (near Fordham Road and the Grand Councorse), was very urban. Fordham was a stop on Metro north, an express stop on 2 subways, the terminus for several bus lines.
i was also less than a mile (as the crow fly's) from the Bronx botanical gardens. i grew up in on the 5th floor of a 5 floor walk up. i could look out windows, and see a panarama of NY metro area (front windows gave a view of GW bridge to NJ, back windows let me see the East river bridges, (Whitestone & Throgg's Neck)
but i had primal forest too, and water falls, and the bronx zoo, for much of my childhood was total free. i had green houses, and orchids, and rock gardens. city scapes often a wonderful environment. (i spent the first earth day at Br. Botanical gardens helping to do a spring clean up)
my kids grew up in a more suburban area, (still inside NYC) and we assisted researchers from Woods Hole by collecting, they tagged and took blood samples from horse shoe crabs.) we pick wild strawberrys, raspberries and mullberries, in a city parks. we kept a compost pile, and i always could find the egg mass of the prey mantis, and we would watch them emerge.
every environment has riches, there is beauty in trees, but also in bridges and wonder works of engineering. grapho, you are right, even small things, can make a very big difference. the bronx botanical gardens has a scant 40 acres or so of ancient hemlocks, (virgin forest) but it was forest enough.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619 |
even small things, can make a very big difference
Yes, de Troy. Let us celebrate "small things which make a big difference" ... like the Bronx Zoo, a nearly miraculous oasis, which I have visited myself.
Too often we make a big thing out of a lot of things which make no difference at all.
What would St. Louis be without its arch?
What would Vancouver be without Stanley Park, or Manhattan without Central Park.
Certainly, these Parks are a small thing within the totality of their urban mass, but those urban areas are almost unthinkable without those Parks, at least unthinkable as leading centres of civilization.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
"And the time of the singing of birds is come," from Henry Purcell's setting of My Beloved Spake: The Song of Solomon
I can't find the text on-line, just vendors of the music.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear Faldage: Thanks for posting that. I am sufficiently
moved by it that I forbear to ask any of the questions it
prompts.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 180
member
|
|
member
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 180 |
Great link to Song of Soloman, Faldage.
I sang the Song of Soloman with a madrigal for my music teacher's wedding years ago. It really was lovely music and the words were rather suggestive. Good stuff.
My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.
Many waters cannot quench love...
Ahhh...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 180
member
|
|
member
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 180 |
You can teach him a lot more on a lot less than 800 acres, gift horse.
True. As a matter of fact, we planted several dozen milkweed plants this year and had all sorts of Monarch butterfly activity in our garden. We collected a Monarch chrysalis recently, put it in a butterfly cage, and are waiting for it to emerge. My son loves to release the butterflies back into the garden.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
G.H., is milk-weed that plant that has a long stalk and these almond shaped buds at the top, about four inches long, that if you open-up have a whole pile of soft downy fluff inside?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 180
member
|
|
member
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 180 |
Sounds like your son might enjoy these websites, Gift Horse:
Thanks! Those are cool sites, grapho.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
Hmmm, definitely not the plant I was thinking of. The one I'm thinking of has the pods hanging on like corn cobs on their stalk.
I'll go look in my plant books, see if I can spot it. For some reason I think it was also called a milkweed.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 180
member
|
|
member
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 180 |
The one I'm thinking of has the pods hanging on like corn cobs on their stalk. My plant gets hard, canoe-shaped pods that are filled with down & seeds. I think most milkweed have pods like that actually. Edit: I just found a photo that might help. See bottom of page at this link. http://kikki.celtic-twilight.com/perennial/asclepias_tuberosa.htm
|
|
|
|
|
