What I wonder about isn;t the self-conscious craftsmanship, or the rightness of Jarrell's judgment, but this lead: "People think of Robert Frost these days, if they think of him at all, as the kind of old-fashioned, well-behaved New England poet who could safely be chosen to read at a presidential inauguration—a chronicler of rural beauties, family values, and snowy trips to Grandmother’s house, much anthologized by educational authorities and often quoted by people who know little about poetry, but not really very good." Is that so?
I've always liked Robert Frost. I remember being very affected by that poem of his about the boy at the sawmill who lost an arm or maybe a hand in an industrial accident. Very sad, and it has stayed with me for many years, decades in fact.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you, Maxine, and I think your response to "Out, Out — " says it all. Frost's poems insinuate themselves into your nervous system since they're unforgettably affective in their effect. He seems, to me, to be disparaged because he makes <*ahem*> sound sense in a Modernist way that leads to clear-cut swing and sway. As I mentioned to Frank in a recent communiqué, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is one of the finest indictments of greed versus need ever inked, I think/ed. Can still recite it entire, a fact which no pomo empire can dispute, no matter how hard it cries.
ReplyDeleteHe is very good, IOW, Frank; and, you're on the cutting edge of counter-PC to question the received "wisdom" during this Age of Terminal Page-Rage (of all stripes and hyper-tripes).