Robert Frost
- Started
- Last post
- 22 Responses
- Corvo2
A note of regard (I know his work has been very politicised).
What do you, US peeps, think about him?
- Corvo20
This is the first thread not design related on qbn.
- boobs0
He had a bad slouch.
- partridge0
He carries a stone and walks among the shade of trees.
- blaw0
I've always appreciated his practical/naturalist style. Veiled, but not abstract. Etc., etc. Not many poets I enjoy reading, but he's one.
- mayo0
I love the moodiness of his work.
- Corvo20
But I was surprised to find that he describes "Truth" to be feminine, although he regrets it later:
"But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?) .
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows..."Pretty nice passage.
- Corvo20
I like how he (in general) turned a bunch of woods, places and snow into such a lively inquisitive place. You need a poet to do that.
- Corvo20
(sequence from above)
"...Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone."This is good stuff!
- Corvo20
Here's the poem on which I'm feeding:
BIRCHES
WHEN I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust--
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
- version30
A quote of His that seems fitting on this forum:
A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity.
- You in particular Corvoversion3
- lolJnr_Madison
- AHAHAH. Well, It's not insane, read poem above for heaven's sake.Corvo2
- HAHAHA <- laughs in English.Corvo2
- Fuck me - that is a great quote.Corvo2
- Corvo20
Well, get some portuguese wine if you wanna know the Trughtfsd.
- Jnr_Madison0
I've always been quite cold to his work, almost frosty in fact.
- dude...Corvo2
- he abides.Jnr_Madison
- killing it as usuallambsy
- Corvo20
^ I'm dead serious about the poem though.
- version30
Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes the pressure off the second.
- PonyBoy0
I grew up in New Hampshire (his home state in which he wrote about often / derived much of his inspiration from)... his work was ejaculated like a porno-wad of verbal cum from any N.H. native - just about as bad as the hard-on my teachers had for anything regarding the American Revolution...
... I can't stand his work. :)
- where in NH? i grew up in Londonderry, right down the road from the Frost farmacescence
- Gilford!... right on Lake Winnipesaukee :)PonyBoy
- wow, winnipesaukee. used to go there all the time. i haven't thought about nh in a long time..acescence
- i admit i miss aspects of it... and the Celtics just told the Bulls 'no' and moved on to round 2 in case you were wondering :)PonyBoy
- Corvo20
Being local doesn't entitle you to anything - good poems work anywhere.
- We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.version3
- also, I'm not taking on you, and you know it - so take a while to read the poem ffs.Corvo2
- v3, you sound like Yeats.Corvo2
- I sound like Frost and you are a foolversion3
- Oh, a fool I am then. Go ahead and write it in your little black book.Corvo2
- You don't even know what a compliment looks like so: gfy.Corvo2
- 2nd note was to PonyBoy.Corvo2
- fuck this shit altogether man. I'm not here to make a point or get enemies, v3.Corvo2
- V3 - GFY.
:D
<3 - PonyPonyBoy - Your anti-intellectualism is getting at you now. Peace. Have a bloody fucking nice weekend.Corvo2
- aww... c'mon guyz. :(PonyBoy
- touchy little twat innit he?version3
- PonyBoy0
haha! I'm just acting bitter towards my childhood... I miss and love N.H.... which means I probably love Frost. :)
... i did tear up... for nostalgic reasons of course... over that poem above.
- Corvo20
Thread is over. I have enjoyed all of your responses. TY.
I won't keep my readings to myself, though: even though I get the feeling my questions are mistaken for bragging or whatever shite I do not wish to mistaken with, around here - I'm sure there's a forum somewhere, where my foolishness will be welcomed and I can carry on with my own stupidity and blatant arrogance.
- I <3 u... if that matters at all.. which i'm sure that's like britney spears saying she looks up to pavarottiPonyBoy