Keats and Frost and song

[kellyrfineman]

Believe me when I say that the title of this post is 100% accurate as to content today, as is the Eddie Izzard quote in the icon. The long story version is that I've just read an interview (from which I will be quoteskimming come Sunday), in which Keats was mentioned. And I thought (as I so often do) "F*ck me, I love Keats", which happens to be a

Comments

[alison23]

I memorized that Frost poem in high school. To be honest, I only picked it because we had to memorize a poem of 25 lines or longer, and that was the only one I could find that was exactly 25 lines and not 28 or more! {blush} But, that was at least 25 years ago and I have never forgotten it since! I'm rather glad, though, that I thought of it as a poem about a star in the sky, rather than a precusor to today's rap songs in which one rap star disses another in verse. ;-)

[kellyrfineman]

In some ways, this poem echoes a bit of his poem "For Once, Then, Something", in which he criticizes people who mock his poems for seeming simple on the surface - he's flipped the criticism the other way. The beauty of Frost (and part of what he's saying in "For Once, Then, Something") is that you can read the surface of his poem and appreciate it as a complete entity and a thing of beauty all its own without delving deeper (although the delving deeper is so much fun!).

[jo_no_anne]

I love Robert Frost. My favorite of his poems is Fire and Ice.

[kellyrfineman]

Some say the world will end in fire,/some say in ice. Not sure which I'd prefer, although I'm sure we won't get a pick.

I love how his poems are so great when read as nature poems on their surface, but how the hidden stories are sometimes so much twisty fun.

Frostiness and something there is that loves a wall!

[anonymous]

I really like your explication here, Kelly. Although, as usual, I am sure that Frost is having a little fun with us here, as well. Picking on Eliot for his impenetrability may be fun for the old man, but Frost is certainly not above obfuscation, and might be, for all his "plain talk" hiding his meaning behind as big a poetic shield as Eliot is. It might be a rough-hewn shield...kind of a splintery old picnic table type of affair, as opposed to Eliot's ornate, rococo number "with the raffia-work base, and the attachment" (I thank Life of Brian for that one). However, it is a verbal shield all the same, although not always a bad thing. It's sort of like Frost's "Mending Wall." The poet creates, and recreates a verbal barrier, but there will still be "gaps" that "two can walk abreast." I like this image because it can become a metaphor for a co-constructive reading process. The writer creates barriers, but leaves gaps that readers can fill with their own experiences, memories, etc. However, that reading is still constrained and guided

Re: Frostiness and something there is that loves a wall!

[kellyrfineman]

B: Love the Life of Brian reference there, and the mental image I have of Eliot and Frost squaring off with their wildly divergent shields.

The name of the "Bright Star"

[ext_5379036]

Your post on Keats's "Bright Star" only slightly preceded the 2009 film of that name, which tells the story of Fanny Brawne, his true love, who inspired the poem

(I actually came here for more on "Choose Something Like a Star", which I sang in Junior High Chorus, which initiated MY love for Frost poetry before we'd even read our first Frost poem in English class.)