Community Chat

[Oznell]

First published on this day, March 7, 1923.

Has been called perhaps the most famous poem of the twentieth century.  Certainly the elegiac last few lines are known to millions. 

Frost was a complex personality who struggled with clinical depression.  I thought this was an especially nice narration of his short, powerful, deceptively simple poem.  Note too the photograph of the young Frost-- we're so used to seeing pictures of him in his white-haired maturity: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws9PNL58RMw

[Group 5 minus 1]

"Good fences make good neighbors". Anyone remember when he spoke at JFK's inaguaration. "The land was ours befor we were the lands."

[Vivian]

This is my favorite poem by my favorite American poet. I read it again recently because of the reference to fences.

[jubilant]

OK....that did it.....off to bed for a nap.  LOL!

Seriously, I love that poem.  The reading of it was so well done.  Thanks for sharing this with us.  

[golding76]

Thank you, oznell.

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is one of my most treasured poems.  Yes, the stark simplicity of its expression belies the existential crisis raging in the soul of the speaker. 

The horse knows so well the habitual ways of its master but intuits that something is amiss.  Just the scene alone, one of quiet and stillness, suggests what I term "the 3 o"clock in the morning of your soul."  An icy, cold scene of quiet emptiness.

Economically expressed but goes right to the core of the matter of life and death decisions.  At least, that is my interpretation.

[silkyk]

Perfect!

[Oznell]

Thanks for sharing that acute interpretation, @golding76!

[bikerbabe]

Frost and Whitman are my favorites. I do love poetry.

[tansy]

One of my favorites.

[LTT1]

@Oznell 

Thank you..yes I enjoyed the reading.

i had always interpreted the poem literally (in my limited exposure) until someone told me it was about death. 

I just love the way his words make me see the scene so clearly.  The final lines of the poem have a special significance to me (but nothing to do with death).