Michael T. Young: How to Read a Poem
The experience of reading a poem should not start in the meaning first, but in the feelings it evokes just hearing those words, in the images, and rhythms carrying you along, much like a good song.
Robert Frost: A Servant to Servants
My father’s brother wasn’t right. They kept him
Locked up for years back there at the old farm.
I’ve been away once – yes, I’ve been away.
The State Asylum.
Baron Wormser: The Missing Poet
Reasons abound for Republicans to not think twice or to dismiss poetry as elitist or more identity politics or whatever pejorative comes to mind. Much more important work is waiting– or so we are told.
Alice Friman: The Road Not Taken
I stood at the window
leaning my head, there
where the glass was cool
and looked out at the trees
bare now in January
Robert Frost: Revelation
We make ourselves a place apart
Behind light words that tease and flout,
But oh, the agitated heart
Till someone find us really out.
Robert Frost: The Wood-Pile
And it was older sure than this year’s cutting,
Or even last year’s or the year’s before.
The wood was gray and the bark warping off it
And the pile somewhat sunken.
Michael Simms: Rhythm Benders | The Musicality of American Poetry
A poem is rooted in the rhythms of pulse, breath and movement.
Seamus Heaney: Personal Helicon
As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.
Audio: Robert Frost reads ‘West-Running Brook’ and ‘The Death of the Hired Man’ (with texts)
‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.’
Robert Frost: The Fear
A lantern light from deeper in the barn
Shone on a man and woman in the door
And threw their lurching shadows on a house
Near by, all dark in every glossy window.
T.S. Eliot: Rhapsody on a Windy Night
The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things
Robert Frost: Provide, Provide
The witch that came (the withered hag)
To wash the steps with pail and rag
Was once the beauty Abishag,
The picture pride of Hollywood.
Robert Frost: In a Disused Graveyard
The ones who living come today
To read the stones and go away
Tomorrow dead will come to stay
Robert Frost: Reluctance
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
