What do we see? What do we hear? The answers to these two questions, when drawn from Robert Frost’s poetry, show quite obviously the skill with which Frost creates his verse. While reading, hardly aware of the complex meter and rhyme scheme of many of his poems, the reader notices Frost’s vivid, accurate, and often unique imagery. This imagery, then, when combined with impeccable word choice, alliteration, and onomatopoeia, sets every aspect of the scene exactly as the poet intended it to be. And yet, perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Frost’s skill as a poet is that such mastery is present, without exaggeration, in every poem read.
While some modern poets may feel that having a set verse and rhyme in a poem is confining, Frost manages to use such restrictions to enhance his poetry. While a definite rhythm and rhyme in poems such as Home Burial and Two Tramps in Mud Time, the first few lines of either could be used to open any prose work as well:
He saw her from the bottom of the stairs
Before she saw him. She was starting down,
Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.
(Home Burial, 1-3)
Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard.
(Two Tramps in Mud Time, 1-2)
While still in meter, both sets of lines written as if being narrated rather than simply expressed. Home Burial is itself a piece of dialog written within set meter and rhyme, yet the language remains conversational and natural:
“Can’t a man speak of his own child he’s lost?”
“Not you!—Oh where’s my hat? Oh I don’t need it!
I must get out of here. I must get air.—”
(Home Burial, 35-37)
And to maintain a progressive rhyme scheme like that of Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, one where the rhyme of the third line of one stanza returns in the first, second, and fourth lines of the next, proves to be a challenge for even the greatest of poets—a group of which Frost is undoubtedly a member.
Still, Frost’s mastery of rhyme and meter proves not to be his only skill as a poet. Descriptive, concrete imagery accurately sets the scene in many of his poems and provides a setting that the reader can easily visualize. “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,/that sends the frozen-ground-swell under it/And spills the upper boulders in the sun,/And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.” says Frost in the first lines of Mending Wall. Such a well described situation allows a reader to grab hold of the poem and what it expresses. And, with Frost’s own truly unique imagery, such as that of the trunks of birches “trailing their leaves on the ground/Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair/Before them over their heads to dry in the sun,” is definitely something do be admired (Birches, 18-20). Such a use of imagery as shown by these two examples and countless others in Frost’s poetry show a creativity that is entirely the poet’s own.
Yet these vividly descriptive passages are little without Frost’s ability to choose the perfect word or set of words, whether used because of sound or meaning. In Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, frost illiterates the ‘s’ sound in combination with long ‘e’ vowel sounds which work well to illustrate the gentleness of the wind and falling snow, as well as the speaker’s own weariness. Or, with the insertion of the word “oh” in the first line of Desert Places, Frost slows the pace of the falling snow so that it seems not to rush but instead to come down quickly and steadily. Or in Two Tramps in Mud Time, Frost describes the “unimportant wood” in line 16 and ties two words with the same root together, “avocation and vocation,” to link the two ideas, just as the speaker links the in his life. And again in Birches, Frost shows his art in describing the birches’ bark as “enamel” which “cracks” and “crazes,” using both alliteration again and onomatopoeia. At the same time, the poet also often uses a word which can have two meanings, leaving the reader to draw upon his own experiences to complete the meaning of the poem, as in the third line of The Oven Bird, “Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again,” where “sound” could mean either “sing” or “complete.” And again, in the ninth line of the same poem, both “fall”’s could refer to autumn, the falling petal, or to the collapse of paradise in the time of Adam and Eve. Anyone of these examples show Frosts careful consideration of language and words when producing his imagery, finally settling on the perfect word to match the mood and theme of the poem.
Frost’s art then becomes most apparent in three ways: his mastery of structure in meter and rhyme, his mastery of descriptive imagery, and his mastery in specific word choice. Any poet could learn much from reading Frost, though few could ever accomplish what he has already done. Each of the poems selected are well written and each theme is well expressed—very few in any lines in Frost’s poems leave the reader at all confused. Frost’s talent as a poet is conveyed with each line and truly every word. And if their is any one thing that Frost possesses as a poet, it is surely skill.
English
Poetry
Robert Frost
You May Learn, But You Might Never Achieve
What do we see? What do we hear? The answers to these two questions, when drawn from Robert Frost’s poetry, show quite obviously the skill with which Frost creates his verse. While reading, hardly aware of the complex meter and rhyme scheme of many of his poems, the reader notices Frost’s vivid, accurate, and often unique imagery. This imagery, then, when combined with impeccable word choice, alliteration, and onomatopoeia, sets every aspect of the scene exactly as the poet intended it to be. And yet, perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Frost’s skill as a poet is that such mastery is present, without exaggeration, in every poem read.
While some modern poets may feel that having a set verse and rhyme in a poem is confining, Frost manages to use such restrictions to enhance his poetry. While a definite rhythm and rhyme in poems such as Home Burial and Two Tramps in Mud Time, the first few lines of either could be used to open any prose work as well:
He saw her from the bottom of the stairs
Before she saw him. She was starting down,
Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.
(Home Burial, 1-3)
Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard.
(Two Tramps in Mud Time, 1-2)
While still in meter, both sets of lines written as if being narrated rather than simply expressed. Home Burial is itself a piece of dialog written within set meter and rhyme, yet the language remains conversational and natural:
“Can’t a man speak of his own child he’s lost?”
“Not you!—Oh where’s my hat? Oh I don’t need it!
I must get out of here. I must get air.—”
(Home Burial, 35-37)
And to maintain a progressive rhyme scheme like that of Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, one where the rhyme of the third line of one stanza returns in the first, second, and fourth lines of the next, proves to be a challenge for even the greatest of poets—a group of which Frost is undoubtedly a member.
Still, Frost’s mastery of rhyme and meter proves not to be his only skill as a poet. Descriptive, concrete imagery accurately sets the scene in many of his poems and provides a setting that the reader can easily visualize. “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,/that sends the frozen-ground-swell under it/And spills the upper boulders in the sun,/And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.” says Frost in the first lines of Mending Wall. Such a well described situation allows a reader to grab hold of the poem and what it expresses. And, with Frost’s own truly unique imagery, such as that of the trunks of birches “trailing their leaves on the ground/Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair/Before them over their heads to dry in the sun,” is definitely something do be admired (Birches, 18-20). Such a use of imagery as shown by these two examples and countless others in Frost’s poetry show a creativity that is entirely the poet’s own.
Yet these vividly descriptive passages are little without Frost’s ability to choose the perfect word or set of words, whether used because of sound or meaning. In Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, frost illiterates the ‘s’ sound in combination with long ‘e’ vowel sounds which work well to illustrate the gentleness of the wind and falling snow, as well as the speaker’s own weariness. Or, with the insertion of the word “oh” in the first line of Desert Places, Frost slows the pace of the falling snow so that it seems not to rush but instead to come down quickly and steadily. Or in Two Tramps in Mud Time, Frost describes the “unimportant wood” in line 16 and ties two words with the same root together, “avocation and vocation,” to link the two ideas, just as the speaker links the in his life. And again in Birches, Frost shows his art in describing the birches’ bark as “enamel” which “cracks” and “crazes,” using both alliteration again and onomatopoeia. At the same time, the poet also often uses a word which can have two meanings, leaving the reader to draw upon his own experiences to complete the meaning of the poem, as in the third line of The Oven Bird, “Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again,” where “sound” could mean either “sing” or “complete.” And again, in the ninth line of the same poem, both “fall”’s could refer to autumn, the falling petal, or to the collapse of paradise in the time of Adam and Eve. Anyone of these examples show Frosts careful consideration of language and words when producing his imagery, finally settling on the perfect word to match the mood and theme of the poem.
Frost’s art then becomes most apparent in three ways: his mastery of structure in meter and rhyme, his mastery of descriptive imagery, and his mastery in specific word choice. Any poet could learn much from reading Frost, though few could ever accomplish what he has already done. Each of the poems selected are well written and each theme is well expressed—very few in any lines in Frost’s poems leave the reader at all confused. Frost’s talent as a poet is conveyed with each line and truly every word. And if their is any one thing that Frost possesses as a poet, it is surely skill.