On Frost's October

Today is the birth date of two very well known poets, Robert Frost (an icon of American poetry) and Gregory Corso (one of the original- and youngest- founders of the Beat poets). I’ll post on Corso next.

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but Frost influenced me by his deceptively simple style, his humble employment of imagery and words, and his determination to explore many different poetic forms. It was by Frost that I came to learn of the Rubaiyat stanza (a stanza that has aaba as its rhyme scheme, a rhythm I excitingly used in some of my own works).

My favorite poem by Frost (and I believe it’s my daughter’s favorite as well) is, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Beautiful, beautiful read (especially out loud). I also like Nature's First Green is Gold- and other elegant poem (and what still astonishes me is the density of detail in so short a poem).

I learned that Frost wrote Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening in the dead of summer. So, as a tribute to him and that favorite poem of mine, I wanted to share another poem of his on this gorgeous spring day, it’s called: October.


October

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
To-morrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes' sake along the wall.


What a beautiful poem. Personally, the poem reminds me of two things: The mystifying beauty of Indian summer, and our mortality (i.e. the coming of winter). I’d love to hear your take on it.

btw: the picture above is called, October Morning, a work created by the gifted artist, Don Reed (you should click the link and check him out).

Nature's First Green is Gold

Remember the movie The Outsiders? If you haven't watched it you're missing out on an excellent early 80s classic. It's about the inevitable clash between two rival gangs, the inadvertent killing of one of their members, the self-exilation of the two young boys who committed the killing, and their need to reconcile the wrong done.

I was thinking of the film recently and remembered there was a scene in the movie where a Robert Frost poem was quoted (I love it when poets are quoted or referred to in movies- philosophers too). The poem, called Nothing Gold Can Stay, was written by Frost in 1923 and was added to his most prized collection of poetry, New Hampshire. It's simple, yet radically profound, one of his shortest poems, and his only one done in trimeter. Check it out.

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.

Remember that! They set this scene up so perfectly that it even aligned with the point of Frost's poem; namely, that the manifestation of purity and beauty sadly persists with us too short a time.

Three Robert Frost Quotes

To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.

Robert Frost

On the Rains of June 11th & 12th, 2010

He Reigns

Like cascades pure in silver stream
The rain is falling like a dream-
It glistens through the street light’s glow,
And blissful flows in single seam.

And here I stand a soul below
Enjoying what may soon be snow-
A watcher of these marvels, see,
A spectator of nature’s show.

I do adore this lifted sea
Whose plenum gray move placidly
Across the sky where rains are poured,
And nebulous hangs over me.

Thank you for their tender chord
And for the peace that it restored-
For all this mist and lovely gleam,
It testifies of you, O Lord.

These cascades pure in silver stream
Are pure arcana- not a dream …

-jwm



Of the Poem (Catalysis and Parameters)

Catalysis:

I stood there under an old carport last night- it was raining and I was utterly mystified by the sparkling amber hues it produced through the streetlight above me. It was past midnight, but an urge to resist sleep and watch rain lead me outside.

I remembered what William Wordsworth once wrote:

Earth hath not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty

It was beautiful, peaceful. The loamy smell that permeated everything earlier in the day was now vaguely tangible- but a deep sense of serenity lingered on in the air, and all I could think about was my daughter and God, and how thankful- wretched as I am- of every wonderful thing I’ve been given.

I reluctantly tore myself away from the bliss of it all-I had to sleep. But once inside and finding my way to the couch, I cracked the window open to hear it rain, turned on the laptop, and began to compose.

Poetic Parameters:

Stanza: four quatrains and a closing couplet
Meter: tetrameter (e.g. four metric feet, or eight syllables per line)
Rhyme Scheme: aaba bbcb ccac aa (using the closing couplet as an oblique refrain for lines 1 and 2)

Note:

The poem’s overall structure was inspired by Robert Frost's poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (a poem whose style was in turn modeled on an even older form known as a Rubaiyat stanza).

I found an incredible similarity of events between Frost’s poem and my experience of the rain last night- a deep desire to behold nature in her beauty, and a reluctance to leave it. The structure of his poem therefore influenced that of mine.

Hope you enjoy it.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

My daughter and I recently read a great poem written by Robert Frost, entitled: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. It's an exceedingly impressive work, to say the least: so much complexity contained in so simple a write. My daughter loved it too and essentially took it for a narrative poem. I felt as though the poem had a representative aspect that spoke of the beauty of life (the woods, the snow) and the inevitability of death (sleep), an aspect that Frost may have only inadvertently intended.

The structure of the poem is especially interesting- notice the rhyme scheme below:

Poetic Parameters:
Stanza: quatrain (4 total)
Meter: tetrameter
Rhyme Scheme: aaba bbcb ccdc dddd (similar to a Rubaiyat stanza)


Stopping by Wood 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 sounds 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.


Of the Poem (One of Many Takes):

We find ourselves, as Heidegger might suggest, thrown into an existence that's nothing less than spectacular: there are the trees, the vaulted blue sky, florescent green grass after it rains- an inexhaustible amount of beautiful things. Indeed, the very idea that one is alive- existing- is marvelous in itself. In short, we're surrounded by an incredible, incredible amount of beauty.

All too often, however, we loose ourselves in mundane worldly matters, becoming so obsorbed in sustaining existence that we tend to loose sight of its very beauty, its splendor. Aesthetic passion and attention flees- or at least seems greatly diminished- where social obligations reign. A great majority of times it seems conventional existence is structured to wage war on on the aesthetic heart- "busy, busy, busy" ... "worry, worry, worry" become its mantra, and we seem hypnotized by it to the point that we literally don't take the time out to stop and smell the roses.

On a purely superficial level it seems that Frost would at least have us aware of the conflict between our inherent desire to be one with beauty and the social constrains and obligations that tend to domesticate that desire. It's almost as if the poem has for its inner topic the conflict between freedom and necessity.

The poet's individual yields to that beauty- out of nowhere and just that moment- and takes in the "lovely, dark, and deep" which was laced with snow that was still falling. Necessity then impinged itself upon the moment and called this person's attention "back to reality" and away from beauty's transcendental sway. In the end the individual leaves that snowy encounter.

The point I derive from the poem is that, despite pressing obligations and social demands, we should step outside of our constraints occasionally and take in some of this beauty that surrounds us.

Robert Frost*

Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)

Robert Frost was born in San Francisco on March 26, 1874. He moved to New England at the age of eleven and became interested in reading and writing poetry during his high school years in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He was enrolled at Dartmouth College in 1892, and later at Harvard, though he never earned a formal degree.

Frost drifted through a string of occupations after leaving school, working as a teacher, cobbler, and editor of the Lawrence Sentinel. His first professional poem, "My Butterfly," was published on November 8, 1894, in the New York newspaper The Independent.

In 1895, Frost married Elinor Miriam White, who became a major inspiration in his poetry until her death in 1938. The couple moved to England in 1912, after their New Hampshire farm failed, and it was abroad that Frost met and was influenced by such contemporary British poets as Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke, and Robert Graves. While in England, Frost also established a friendship with the poet Ezra Pound, who helped to promote and publish his work.

By the time Frost returned to the United States in 1915, he had published two full-length collections, A Boy's Will and North of Boston, and his reputation was established. By the nineteen-twenties, he was the most celebrated poet in America, and with each new book—including New Hampshire (1923), A Further Range (1936), Steeple Bush (1947), and In the Clearing (1962)—his fame and honors (including four Pulitzer Prizes) increased.

Though his work is principally associated with the life and landscape of New England, and though he was a poet of traditional verse forms and metrics who remained steadfastly aloof from the poetic movements and fashions of his time, Frost is anything but a merely regional or minor poet. The author of searching and often dark meditations on universal themes, he is a quintessentially modern poet in his adherence to language as it is actually spoken, in the psychological complexity of his portraits, and in the degree to which his work is infused with layers of ambiguity and irony.

In a 1970 review of The Poetry of Robert Frost, the poet Daniel Hoffman describes Frost's early work as "the Puritan ethic turned astonishingly lyrical and enabled to say out loud the sources of its own delight in the world," and comments on Frost's career as The American Bard: "He became a national celebrity, our nearly official Poet Laureate, and a great performer in the tradition of that earlier master of the literary vernacular, Mark Twain."

About Frost, President John f. Kennedy said, "He has bequeathed his nation a body of imperishable verse from which Americans will forever gain joy and understanding."

Robert Frost lived and taught for many years in Massachusetts and Vermont, and died in Boston on January 29, 1963.


*Biography from Poets.org