[New-Poetry] Van Doren and Frost

[JforJames at aol.com]

I went to a lovely event last evening. About an hour from here in  Litchfield 
County, at the U-Conn extension campus in Torringtion, Charles  (Charlie) Van 
Doren delivered an informal lecture on Robert Frost. He read 18  poems, 
interspersed with commentary and close reading (finding the 'appall'  among all 
those aspects of white in the poem "Design") or reminiscing  over when he first 
encountered this or that poem, and how it affected him then  and now. 
 
The audience was not primarily students or the usual suspects  at poetry 
readings. They were mostly people from the community, folks from  the surrounding 
towns come out to hear an intelligent man talk about  poetry. 
 
All the palaver about the loss of the 'audience for poetry' seemed pretty  
silly last night. What we need are more poets and teachers willing to engage  
their communities with a subject they so dearly & evidently love.
 
Among the poems he read and talked about was this one....
 
 
The Last Mowing
 
There’s a place called Faraway Meadow
We never shall mow in again,
Or  such is the talk of the farmhouse:
The meadow is finished with men.
Then  now is the chance for the flowers
That can’t stand mowers and plowers.
It  must be now, though, in season 
Before trees, seeing the opening,
March  into a shadowy claim.
The trees are all I’m afraid of,
That flowers can’t  bloom in the shade of;
It’s no more men I’m afraid of;
The meadow is done  with the tame.
The place for the moment is ours
For you, oh tumultuous  flowers,
To go to waste and go wild in,
All shapes and colors of  flowers,
I needn’t call you by name.
 
--Robert Frost




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