A COUPLE OF WEEKS ago I was house sitting for a relative, taking care of her pets and plants. Looking for something to read there was the Library of America volume of poetry and prose writing of Robert Frost. I haven't read any of Frost's writing for decades, never having liked him or his work much. I'd never read any of his prose. I was especially interested in the several plays in the book, finding out why I'd never heard of them before. Modern verse drama is a species of writing I've never found especially good poetry or, especially, drama. From Christopher Fry to Archibald MacLeish it's bad drama, probably least bad as read and not produced, and forced poesy. Frost's aren't any better that I can see.
Frost is one of those writers who is known for a superficial reading of some of his most atypical work, the frequently anthologized poems, those which used to be and might still be found in jr. high or high school textbooks, are nothing like most of it which is characterized by bitterness, a stingy and uncharitable view of people and reality. He is primarily dispeptic not homey and folky as so many people think. I remember once being fond of or, rather, amused by the obscure poem, The Witch of Coos and read it to some kids on Halloween once. There are a few lines in his long poem New Hampshire that capture what's wrong with the only state that mine happens to share a border with. He uses a "Massacusetts poet's" jab at him in that short list of what's wrong with New Hampshire. I don't know who she was but I agreed with her when I read that probably about a half a century ago. I don't know how topical that still is but yet another Sununu is their present governor. Which is an indication that for a lot of them nothing much has changed and they didn't learn a thing from the first one who sold them the nuke which they've been paying for ever since.
After a while I thought, I'd rather be reading Denise Levertov, unfortunately there was none of her writing available that night. I first became aware of her due to our shared opposition to the war in Vietnam and found out she was one of those lesser promoted poets whose work will probably outlive some of those who were wider known, though probably not as often anthologized.
Later, looking online to find something of hers to read that I hadn't read I found out that today is the hundredth anniversary of her birth. This is a recent article about her focusing on her late in life conversion to Christianity and then Catholicism. I haven't really done enough research or recent reading of her to go into much detail. I'm hoping to at least correct the second of those.
Here she is a short time before her death reading six of her poems.
No comments:
Post a Comment