[New-Poetry] Re: Frost on the edge

[Roger Day]

Frost - the American Wordsworth.

I think the post-revolutionary Wordsworth has a lot in common with
Frost: they both seem to recognise the challenges of the 19th and 20th
century, then look away. Frost even more so than Wordsworth.
Particularly in "Design": it's "challenges" are as moth-eaten as
Bishop Paley's bones.

So, besides being back-wards looking and ignoring most of the changes
of the 19th and 20th century, I'm not sure what Frost has to add to
the world. I don't think it's excitement, though. Stability and
nostalgia seem to be his stock-in-trade, his popularity is not so
surprising when one considers the rampant and on-going changes of the
last 200 years.

Roger

On 2/9/07, Jason Quackenbush <jfq at myuw.net> wrote:
> i took your challenge. frost is boring.
>
> Michael Heffernan wrote:
> > I have a hard time grasping how anyone could read Frost's North of Boston, all the way past the "Greatest Hits" to frequently unread masterpieces of dramatic blank verse, including "The Black Cottage," "A Servant to Servants," and "The Generations of Men," and come away convinced that Frost was a boring poet who had nothing to contribute to the art of poetry in the 20th century.
> >
> > Has anyone read "The Bonfire" lately (from Mountain Interval)?  Do it out loud, and then tell me Frost is boring.
> >
> > Michael Heffernan
> >
> >
> >
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