TV and Movies

[Oznell]

2:30 p.m. Eastern--  "Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel with the World"--   Have never seen it, but how fascinating to have the poet in front of a camera discussing his work!

Directed by legendary experimental filmmaker Shirley Clarke, who also famously shot "The Cool World" about street gangs in the Sixties.

Robert Frost was such a layered, complex individual and poet.

[drizzellla]

I saw it on the schedule and set my TV timer a week or so ago. I just checked to make sure about the time. I wanted to turn off the TV today and get other things done BUT did not want to miss Robert Frost. 

Thanks for posting - I need all the reminders I can get sometimes.

[Stray]

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wrote:

2:30 p.m. Eastern--  "Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel with the World"--   Have never seen it, but how fascinating to have the poet in front of a camera discussing his work!

Directed by legendary experimental filmmaker Shirley Clarke, who also famously shot "The Cool World" about street gangs in the Sixties.

Robert Frost was such a layered, complex individual and poet.

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@Oznell- I took a course on poetry when I returned to school. I had always loved his poetry and the beautiful snowy landscapes he would describe so vividly.  My professor a Ph.D met him when she was in graduate school and said he was a nasty & unkind man.  I was crushed.  I later took a course, Psychological Profiles in Literature, which gave me credit in Psych & English; I was a double major in both.   Well, I delved into his life and in terms of Freud looked at his poetry.  I got an A and my paper was read at an honors collloquim but I wound up disliking Frost a lot.  I think I would have preferred just taking his poetry at face value.   He was really layered and complex but sometimes ""ignorance is bliss" 

[Oznell]

Oh, your paper sounds terrific, and the Freud angle that you took, fascinating, @Stray!

[Group 5 minus 1]

Ah! Good fences make good neighbors.

[Group 5 minus 1]

I remember watching him at JFK's inaguaration and he complained about the light.

What a genius!

The land was ours before we were the lands.

[Oznell]

I really like what I was able to see of it.  Made me long for the days when good poets had large followings and gave frequent readings, etc.  You get to see some of Frost's readership in this documentary, and they were devoted.

Those of you who saw "A River Runs Through It" will appreciate this.  Remember the scene where Norman comes upon his father, reading poetry aloud to himself.  Norman quite unselfconsciously joins in, from memory, and they finish reciting it together.   Well, a certain teenage boy (ha) said to me then--  "Oh, right, like that would ever happen!"

I had to set him straight that, yes, once, and certainly in literate households like the Reverend Maclean's, people knew tons of poetry by heart, and took pleasure in reciting it to each other.

Even in my Dad's generation, kids would often learn gobs of poetry in school by heart.  My Dad sometimes playfully recited fragments to us.  I have nice memories of him intoning dramatically Alfred Lord Tennyson's  "Break, Break, Break".

As in:   "Break, break, break /  On thy cold gray stones O Sea! /  And I would that my tongue could utter, /  the thoughts that arise in me."    Etc, etc.

I can still see him thundering it out, in his best schoolboy elocutionary style! 

[drizzellla]

Oznell - My Dad also could recite poetry from memory. I was amazed. I could barely remember the Gettysburg Address and the Preamble of the Constitution. I had to memorize both for school. And he graduated how many years before me. And yet he had no trouble reciting poems from his school days.

[Oznell]

@drizzellla, I stand in awe before the educational system of old, which was able to inculcate all those kids with poetry!

[drizzellla]

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wrote:

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Educational System of old!!

You got that right! My Dad also built hydrogen rockets with his next door neighbor. They were about 13 years old. My Dad got a chemistry set for Christmas and they put it to "good" use with their erector sets.