Robert Frost – Three Poems – by Kaye Spencer #poetry #firestarpress #robertfrost

 

This is my fourth article in an on-going series about my favorite poems.Click on the poem’s title to read the article.

July  2020: – Invictus by William Ernest Henley

June 2020: – Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer

May 2020: – My Papa’sWaltz by Theodore Roethke

This month, my poetic interests focus on three poems by Robert Frost. I have these poems committed to memory. Before I delve into these poems, though, I will share a bit about Frost’s life 

 

Unknown author at the source., Robert Frost, 1910s,
marked as public domain, more details on Wikimedia Commons

 

Robert Frost was…

• Born in San Francisco March 26, 1874
• Moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts following father’s death in 1885
• Won four Pulitzer prizes for Poetry – only poet to achieve this
• Received Congressional Gold Medal in 1960 for his poetic works
• Recited a poem at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration on January 20, 1961. He was 86. The bright sunlight interfered with his ability to read the poem he’d written just for the inauguration (Dedication), so he recited his poem "The Gift Outright" from memory.

 What I find fascinating, tragic, heartbreaking…choose your descriptor…and what undoubtedly influenced his writings, are the personal challenges and difficulties that colored his life and his world perspective. You can read this information on the websites listed below in the Resources section, but this is the most detailed explanation I’ve found. (Wikipedia) 

“Robert Frost's personal life was plagued by grief and loss. In 1885 when he was 11, his father died of tuberculosis, leaving the family with just eight dollars. Frost's mother died of cancer in 1900. In 1920, he had to commit his younger sister Jeanie to a mental hospital, where she died nine years later. Mental illness apparently ran in Frost's family, as both he and his mother suffered from depression, and his daughter Irma was committed to a mental hospital in 1947. Frost's wife, Elinor, also experienced bouts of depression.

Elinor and Robert Frost had six children: son Elliot (1896–1900, died of cholera); daughter Lesley Frost Ballantine (1899–1983); son Carol (1902–1940, committed suicide); daughter Irma (1903–1967); daughter Marjorie (1905–1934, died as a result of puerperal fever after childbirth); and daughter Elinor Bettina (died just one day after her birth in 1907). Only Lesley and Irma outlived their father. Frost's wife, who had heart problems throughout her life, developed breast cancer in 1937, and died of heart failure in 1938.”

One doesn’t endure heartache and loss such as this and not have it influence your creative expression. 

 

Commemorative Stamp US Gov, RobertFrost,
marked as public domain, more details on Wikimedia Commons

On to the three poems…

Acquainted with the Night – 1927

A favorite interpretation of this poem is ‘night’ equals ‘depression’, and the narrator walking alone in the city is an indication of his depressed mental state that isolates him from everything and everyone. This certainly fits with the sorrow and grief Frost experienced.

For me, this is a poem of loneliness. The person walks the night alone, because staying home is difficult to unbearable. The person finds solace in the solitude and freedom out being outside instead of remaining inside when the walls of the house close in. It is a poem of looking for something to replace whatever the person has lost, and that loss has left a hole of loneliness inside that can’t be filled. This poem as a metaphor for loneliness resonates with me, because loneliness is an overriding and recurring theme in the stories I write.

 

– Acquainted with the Night read by Ron Perlman as Vincent from Beauty and the Beast - television program 1987 - 1990.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening – 1922

I’ve read an interpretation that the woods represent irrational thought, irresponsible behavior , and the dark side of the personality, which is in direct contrast to the village, which represents civilization, society, responsibility, sensibility, and duty. The woods are where you lose your way, because the snow covers your tracks, and you can’t find your way back. The woods are a siren call or a death wish.

Well… I fall back on what I told my students when I taught literature. “Sometimes the dog is just a dog.” This means that not every part of a story of poem has to be analyzed or given symbolic meaning.

I see this poem as a moment in time when the narrator is so taken with the beauty of the snow falling in the woods, that time stands still. The narrator is drawn to enter the woods to experience the awe of nature. With the narrator remembering it is the darkest evening of the year, the first day of winter, which is close to Christmas, gives me a feeling of a young man returning home after being away from family for a long time, perhaps having been off to war.

He grew up in this village, and he is so taken by the sight of the woods that he remembers from years before, that he is caught up in moment of inner peace that he hasn’t felt since he left home. The horse shaking his harness bells breaks the spell, which reminds him he promised to be home before Christmas and he has miles to go before he sleeps…

It’s a happy, satisfying poem for me.

 

–  Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening read by Peter Dickson

The Road Not Taken – c. 1915

Interpretations of this poem are all over the place from ‘following your own path’ to ‘no matter what choice you make, you’ll always regret not making a different choice’ to the sigh at the end being satisfaction or disappointment. There is a sense of crying over what might have been in many of the critical essays about this poem. Frost apparently wrote this poem with his friend, Edward Thomas, in mind, as a way to tease him about his (Thomas’) tendency to agonize over choices.

I read this poem as the narrator contemplating two choices before him (using masculine because Frost, a man, wrote the poem). The choices are ‘roads’. Roads are man-made, so his choices are not necessarily adventure related, but career/job related. It’s a poem about equal opportunities and having to choose one, and once chosen, there is no going back and no regretting.

Probably my personal experience with this colors my interpretation. I was working as a school psychologist while simultaneously taking the last few classes in the program. I had reached ‘all but internship’ stage, when I was offered the job of Director of Exceptional Student Services for 13 school districts. I was at the two roads diverging in a yellow wood. The poem fits my situation perfectly from then through the rest of my career in education and retirement and to my life right now.

 I left the school psych program and accepted the director position. And that made all the difference…

 

– The Road Not Taken read by Tom Bates

Until next time,
Kaye Spencer

 

Stay in contact with Kaye—

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 Resources - Robert Frost:

• Britannica.com Website
• Biography.com Website
• Poets.org Website
• Prabook Website
• Poetry Foundation Website
• Wikipedia Article

 

 

The Book Tour Episode Nineteen: Traveler’s Blues

 

The Book Tour Episode Nineteen: Traveler’s Blues

by J. Arlene Culiner 

 

Helped by the driver (she can hardly walk on her own) a huge woman boards the bus, her flap of blubber hanging skirt-like over what are probably thighs. Because she would never be able to move further, she gets to sit in the “forbidden” first seat of the bus, right across from the driver . Worse than her physical condition is her voice, nasal, loud, and complaining. Needing to be noticed, she uses size and noise to define her position: “Look, you can’t miss me. Now listen!”

 

She’s on her way to Fort Lauderdale to see her husband. “Visiting hours at the jail are from three, but if you’re late they make you wait, and then I can’t get to see him no more ‘cause I’ll miss the bus, you can’t trust no taxi driver down there, they charge you eight dollars when everyone knows it’s only four.” She repeats this five times.

“Husband’s in jail for drunk driving, hit a woman, just cut her two inches and now she’s suing, and the police let her keep all the money and it’s from prostitution too. Only two inches and don’t she know the longer they keep my husband in jail the longer she’s gonna wait for her money ‘cause if he ain’t allowed out to drive his truck, how’s he gonna make money to pay her back? I tried to call her and tell her that. Sure, my husband’s got a drink problem but these eleven months he’s been in jail will dry him out all right. It’s discrimination because he’s Mexican. I called the civil liberties but they said they only handle group cases. It’s unfair. Last time they took his license away for drunk driving he earned it back so he’s not no criminal. He earned it back, you hear? And you know what? Now they’re threatening him with five years.” She pops open a cola. “Weighed myself this morning, so it’s low enough today.”

To escape her, I flee to the back of the bus.

 

Along the road, we pass older wooden houses tucked into trees, but more often used car lots, fast food chains, DIY centers, All-U-Can-Eat buffets, malls, office supply emporiums, and endless concrete ditches. Hard to imagine that not very long ago — before 1900 — this was a land of pine forests, dunes, and mangroves, where bear, deer, wildcats, coons, opossums, alligators, crocodiles even a few panthers thrived. Isolated groups of the indigenous Calusa and Tequesta people still lived here, too, those whose ancestors had survived war and disease, who had avoided being transported to Havana when the Spanish colonists left. Joined by incoming Creek, free blacks, and escaped slaves, they lived in houses with palmetto roofs and built out of scavenged lumber. Traveling through the heart of the Everglades but rarely living within it, they grew pumpkins and sweet potatoes, ate turtles and turtle eggs.

 

But in 1900, Florida was already a land speculator’s paradise. Using convict labor, ironwood trees, considered too hard to be cut down, were blown to pieces with dynamite; Machineel and Jamaican Dogwood, were burned out and replaced with coconut palms, orange and lime trees, as well as banana palms. Ancient Tequesta Indian burial mounds were dug up, the remains and artifacts either buried in pits or given away. The Miami River was dynamited to provide water for the Royal Palm Hotel; and wildlife was exterminated. Finally, in the 1920s Florida, was a luxury holiday venue: the native people now worked on local farms, ranches, and at souvenir stands. Yet, dream vacation destination or no, this state had the highest rate of lynchings per capita, and the violence continued well into the 1950s.

 

The state’s population has grown from 529,000 in 1900, to 21,993,000 today, and Florida now has one of the most endangered ecosystems in the USA. Introduced species such as Australian pines and Melaleuca have destroyed indigenous plants and native pine forests (a mere two percent of the original pineland remain) turtle nesting grounds, and Indian mounds. Ecologically priceless marshes and wetlands, so necessary for replenishing and filtering groundwater, have been drained and transformed into beaches, golf courses, manicured lawns, or have become mere waste receptacles. No lake, river, or bay is free from polluting phosphates, radioactive gypsum, fertilizers, sugar plantation and orange juice processing waste; and Lakes Griffin, Apopka and Okeechobee are near death.

 

Snakes are killed indiscriminately, the water bird population has fallen disastrously, and there is little respect for wildlife outside of park areas: From 1966 to 1970, after particularly heavy rainfall created man-made floods, deer that sought refuge on dry land found themselves at the mercy of frenzied hunters who turned their dogs loose on them, or shot them from airboats when they attempted escape.

 

In 2014, the Everglades National Park welcomed over a million visitors who spent $104,476,500 in nearby communities. However, this area is now less than half of its original size, and is threatened by encroaching development, pollution, and invasive species. Continued political manipulation and the glitter of financial gain continues to push this fragile ecosystem into entropy and potential collapse, and although a plan to help save the area was passed by Congress in 2000, progress has stalled.

***

 

I give my book talk to a wealthy crowd in the events center of a luxury apartment complex by the beach in Boca Raton. The audience is attentive, and I am asked what my next project will be. I mention Hungary and investigating a pogrom that took place in 1946.

“What for?” asks a well-lifted blond woman. “Why are you bothering to do something like that? Who cares?”

She’s right, of course. And, suddenly assailed by doubts, I am naked in the crowd.

A man comes up to me, a German Jew who managed to escape in ’39: everyone else in his family perished. He has never returned to Germany although he knows the country has changed. “You are able to live in those countries,” he says to me. “You can travel in them and investigate. I was born over there. It’s different for me.” He even admires what I am doing, but probably imagines I have some official capacity as a journalist, or that I’m with the Wiesenthal Center.

 

Sharing the space for the book talk is a local “art” exhibit — a hearty collection of dreadful schnick schnack: Vogue magazine covers with 3D effects, awkward Japanese calligraphy art, a few senseless abstracts, and many doubtful sewn button paintings.

“Myra has only been doing art for three years and she’s sold everything she’s made,” says the enthusiastic presenter. “She turns to the glowing Myra. “That means you’re a great artist.”

There are also some surprisingly good watercolors, and one is a delicate depiction of a red fox. The artist comes up to me. “He lives in the bushes around this building,” she says. “I feed it dog food so it won’t starve.”

I stare at her. She is elegant, well-dressed, and obviously wealthy, and I am surprised she cares for such a creature. “A fox lives here, in this world of concrete and tamed vegetation?”

“The other residents are afraid of it, but I do my best to convince them not to have it exterminated. I hope I succeed. They’re all so afraid of nature, but we can get over our fears if we try. I once touched a snake in a nature zoo experience.”

We chat for quite a while because we like each other. Perhaps could even become good friends, but too many things divide us: my itinerant life, her big house in the north and this Florida condo; her wealth, and my lack of money; my failure to find, like she did, a kindly millionaire husband with intelligence, and a fine European education.

 

The people around me are polite, smiling, talking enthusiastically, and I’m assailed by faint depression and doubt — that’s part of the lone traveller’s baggage. Such moments pass, of course, but I wonder if I’ve made a terrible mistake in life. Perhaps there’s still time to sell out, give up on idealism, learn to live happily in such a disaster area and ignore the devastation we cause. How easy life could be.

 

I sit at the table, pen in hand, ready to sign books, when a handsome stranger approaches. He is a man who has just stepped out of the pages of a romance novel, and I stare at him, entranced. He bends down, smiles.

“You have beautiful handwriting.”

“Well, thank you.” But I’m at a loss for further repartee. I wonder if he might also think I’m beautiful, but know he probably only considers me an oddity with my wild gestures, my exaggerations.

Then just like that, like Yahweh in the Zohar, the stranger vanishes, taking with him his smile, the warmth in his eyes. Leaving the crowd and the cocktails behind; leaving me with my piles of books and my bus ticket on to other places.

 

More about my books and passionate life can be found at http://www.j-arleneculiner.com

and http://www.jill-culiner.com

and on my story podcast at https://soundcloud.com/j-arlene-culiner

TALES FROM THE REWRITE, by Mollie Hunt, Cat Writer

Last week when I was at the beach, I worked on reading (aloud) the proof copy of Cat Winter, one of my latest WIPs and the 2^nd book of the Cat Seasons Tetralogy. The manuscript has been through several edits, a beta reader, and a trip to my editor, so I went into it thinking, with a few tweaks here and there, the book would be ready to publish. The first pages came off without a hitch; then the red lines began. The way I proof is to mark directly in the proof book with a red pen—soon there were more pages with red lines, circles, and arrows that not.

Okay, that's pretty normal—for both Cat Café and Cosmic Cat, I slogged through two full proofs before I was happy. But then I ran into a bigger conundrum: you see, Cat Winter, like all the Cat Seasons Tetralogy, is in two parts. The first part is relatively tame violence-wise, but part two, when my heroes travel back in time to antediluvian South America, things begin to get ugly. I suppose like many of us, I had been traumatized at a young age by stories of atrocities committed by people of that era. I'm not sure if it was a catharsis to write about such horrors, but none the less, I got down and dirty. That would be fine since this isn’t by any means a “cozy” story, except that part 1 of the book flows in a completely different vein. The ultra-violence doesn’t fit. I need to tone it down. This means a huge rewrite. Not what I had planned.

How much violence do you tolerate in your fiction? How much do you enjoy? Where does violence fit into your taste in books? 

With the pandemic, as well as the Black Lives Matter protests, our penchant for reading violent stories is changing. We no longer want to hear about the rogue cop who does it all his way, no matter what laws he breaks or who gets hurt. But we don’t want a tiptoe through the tulips either. 

Cat Winter, being a sci-fantasy about cats saving the world, doesn’t have any cops, but it’s not all tulips either. Rewriting is hard, sometimes harder than the original draft; still, it’s the right thing to do. Be warned, however, I won’t be throwing out all the carnage. It’s way too much fun! 

Note: Cat Summer, the first book in the Cat Seasons Tetralogy, published by Fire Star Press last year, just won the Cat Writers’ Association Muse Medallion for best sci-fi/fantasy book 2019! This prestigious award is an exciting badge of honor for my debut sci-fantasy.

Our Literal Virtual Reality

It’s been about five months since the “quarantine” started and, if you’re like me, you haven’t been out much.  A friend of mine, who also regularly stays home other than going out for necessities, recently told me that at the beginning of everything, she was at a loss as to how to fill her hours/days of free time outside of work.  At 10:00 a.m. on the weekend, she and her husband would look at each other and say, “What are we going to do for the next eight hours until dinner?”  They are big sports fans and were used to spending their weekend days with whatever game was on TV in whatever sports season it might be.  So they were understandably feeling a large hole in their weekend lives at the time.    

I didn’t have that problem, and the isolation at home didn’t bother me too much at the beginning.   What could be better for an introvert who likes to read and write than to stay home and indulge in those activities?  Forcing myself to get ready and out of the house for an event was a thing of the past.  But as the days, weeks, and months have worn on, I’ll admit to feeling a bit of wear and tear, a general restlessness.  

Everyone has had to adapt in their own way to find things to do to keep productive and/or entertain themselves in their free hours.  Some have chosen to get out and about in the real world and take advantage of the socially distant amusements that are available.  For me, I have been enthralled by all of the virtual options that immediately became available when everyone found themselves “locked down” and without their normal after-work or weekend diversions.  

I began by participating in Zoom fitness classes.  The studio I had previously attended in person immediately started offering classes online - that you can take from the comfort and privacy of your own home!  So easy just to throw down a mat, pick up some weights (or soup cans as the case may be) and go.  

Then there are the online happy hours.  Before, I rarely Face-Timed with friends or relatives, but now it’s a regularly scheduled event.  I’m not sure why I wasn’t doing this before since most of my close friends and relatives live in another state and I rarely get to see them in person even in normal times.  Probably because people were so busy before they were forced to stay home that there was no hope of scheduling a virtual happy hour that everyone could attend.  I hope these will remain when things get back to normal.    

I have also taken a few Zoom cooking classes with some local friends hosted by a local chef.  It was great being able to cook in your own kitchen, but at the same time chat with friends and ask questions of the chef.  My sports-fan friend started cooking via Zoom with her kids who live in other cities so they can try out different recipes and share meals together as a family.  

I also discovered Facebook Live for live (hence the name) music concerts 

Better Than Ezra singing in our living room

and author interviews, book tours, and readings.  

Murder by the Book coming to me through my iPhone

Other options are virtual literary salons, book clubs, podcasts, and many more that I’m sure I’m missing.  I will even be attending the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention virtually this year.  You can mirror the event on your TV in the living room, or play it on your phone, tablet, or laptop in the back yard (or kitchen if you’re cooking!).  

Although most of these events are recorded and the recording is offered later if you happen to miss the live version, I find that the “live” aspect is most appealing.  It allows you to interact with others, for example, to ask questions of the chef, author, or fitness instructor.  It also provides a modicum of accountability if you are exercising and might be too lazy to fully participate unless the instructor is watching you (not me, of course).  

Nothing beats in-person events, and I miss music concerts and Bouchercon the most.  But until these are back, I will enjoy all the virtual options that are out there.  (And don’t get me started on the take-out margaritas - although those are not virtual, so maybe for another post!)

What have you been doing in your free time and do you have any virtual options that you would recommend?

Angela Crider Neary is an attorney by day and writer by night. She is an avid mystery reader and especially enjoys reading novels set in interesting locales. She was inspired to write her first mystery novella, Li'l Tom and the Pussyfoot Detective Bureau: The Case of the Parrots Desaparecidos, by one of her favorite areas in San Francisco, Telegraph Hill.  Her second book, Li'l Tom and the Case of the New Year Dragon is now available.  To learn more, visit her on Facebook and Amazon.

Communication, Wherefore Art Thou?

My husband and I have been married for almost 34 years. For the most part, we communicate fairly well - at least until it comes to home improvement projects. Once the home improvements begin we seem to begin speaking two different languages even though they both sound like English. We can be saying the same thing without either of us realizing it because we're saying it so differently. This means that the next couple of weeks aren't going to be easy. 😬

A couple of weeks ago my husband discovered water dripping from the ceiling in the downstairs bathroom - definitely not a good sign since it's right below the master bath. In order to troubleshoot, we had to pull down part of the bathroom ceiling. The ceiling is tongue-in-groove, which is fortunate; we were able to remove individual strips of wood rather than punch a ragged hole like we would have to do with sheet rock. The tongue-in-groove came down relatively easily - in spite of the miscommunications. At one point we had the following conversation:

Husband: No. You're doing that at an angle; it needs to be flat.

Me: *baffled* What do you mean? Of course I'm working at an angle. I'm not 8 feet tall and I'm working on the ceiling.

Me: (after pondering the situation) Are you trying to tell me that I should turn the pry bar over?

Husband: Yes.

Me: Next time, say that! Use your words.

Image courtesy of www.depositphotos.com

Over the next couple of weeks we will be doing the following in the master bath:

- Covering the popcorn ceiling with tongue-in-groove

- Replacing the light fixtures

- Painting the walls and cabinet

- Replacing the countertop and sink

- Replacing the current non-waterproof flooring

- Replacing towel rods, sink, and shower hardware

- Replacing the toilet

We'll pay a plumber to install the toilet and replace the shower hardware; the rest we will do ourselves. (I'll handle the painting; I learned several years ago that painting goes better if I do it alone.) Opportunities for miscommunication abound! But, we'll get through it - in spite of occasional harsh words and hurt feelings.

Wish us luck! I'll post before and after pictures next month.

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