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Thursday, April 15, 2021

Poetry on Thursday: Spring/New Beginnings

This week's poetry prompt from Kym was "spring/new beginnings." When I think of spring, I think of nature and the flora and fauna of the world know when spring is coming even when it feels to us humans like winter will never end.

The combination of nature and poetry always brings to mind the work of one poet in particular for me: Robert Frost. I think I may have mentioned here before that in my junior year of high school, I was required to pick an American writer to do an in-depth study of and then write a term paper on. I chose Frost and read every poem he ever wrote in preparation to write the paper, and my thesis was that he chose nature as a canvas on which to paint his internal emotional state. Frost was a fairly traditional poet, in that his poems were rhyming and often had regular meter. They're also familiar to many people, even those who don't typically read poetry, because some of them are ubiquitous and easily memorized. But chances are you've never heard or read this one, though I think you'll like it -- to me, it so perfectly captures my feelings when there's the very first hint of spring in the air.

To the Thawing Wind

Come with rain, O loud Southwester!
Bring the singer, bring the nester;
Give the buried flower a dream;
Make the settled snowbank steam;
Find the brown beneath the white;
But whate'er you do tonight,
Bathe my window, make it flow,
Melt it as the ice will go;
Melt the glass and leave the sticks
Like a hermit's crucifix;
Burst into my narrow stall;
Swing the picture on the wall;
Run the rattling pages o'er;
Scatter poems on the floor;
Turn the poet out of door.

From The Poetry of Robert Frost, (c) 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc.

9 comments:

  1. Wow. I read this with my eyes, and then read it aloud to myself. It is glorious! (and I am printing this out and putting it in my journal!) Thank you!

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  2. I only know some of the more popular Frost poems, so I'm very glad you chose this one to share. I'll think of it often when the thawing March and April winds blow!

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  3. What a great poem about spring, Sarah. (Robert Frost was my first "poetry-crush" . . . way back in the day!) I always like thinking about the spring winds clearing the way for warmer days, and this poem is so evocative of just that. XO

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  4. Robert Frost has a special place in my heart. How nice to find him here this morning.

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  5. I have this exact book. I think it may have been my first poetry book ever, actually, when I was about 9 or 10. I moved onto other poets in history and went to HS thinking all poetry had to rhyme. LOL

    I often think of Mary Oliver as a sort of modern Frost - the use of nature to express emotions and large concepts.

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  6. I have a "thing" for Robert Frost too - a Vermont connection if you will. This is such a moving poem Sarah - I love it!

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  7. I am totally ready to be turned out of door!

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  8. I had not read that poem. Robert Frost was such an interesting gentleman. I should pick up his book from my shelf.

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  9. I love this poem - thank you for sharing it! I love how often poets write about nature, they're such a perfect fit.

    Robert Frost spent quite a bit of time in New Hampshire and when I first moved here, I braved the far northern, mountainous part of the state to visit a house he lived in: https://frostplace.org/

    There's another Frost House in Derry, which is further south and I haven't visited that one yet, but I LOVED The Frost Place. I went in the fall, but you could already feel winter setting in - it was perfect!

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