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VOICE ONE:
I’m Shirley Griffith.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Rich Kleinfeldt with the Special English program, Peoplein America. Today, we begin the story of twentieth century poetRobert Frost.
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VOICE ONE:
In nineteen-sixty-one, John Kennedy was sworn in as president ofthe United States. He asked one of America’s best-known writers toread a poem. Robert Frost stood in the cold sunlight that day, hiswhite hair blowing in the wind. He read these words from his poem,”The Gift Outright”:
NARRATOR:
The land was ours before we were the land’s.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia,
But we were England’s, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.
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VOICE TWO:
Robert Frost was one of America’s best known and most honoredserious writers. But his fame came late in his life. He was fortyyears old before Americans began to read his poems and praise them.Once his fame was established, however, it grew stronger andstronger during the rest of his long life.
His success came from uniting traditional forms of poetry withAmerican words, spoken in a clearly American way.
VOICE ONE:
Frost used the same speaker for many poems, so the separate poemsformed a larger unity. He created this speaker carefully. He feltthat his readers would believe his poems if he put the words intothe mouth of a wise person who lived in the country, not the city.
Many people thought the speaker was Frost himself. In fact, thespeaker was an imaginary person. Frost, the man, tried to become theimaginary person he created for his poetry.
VOICE TWO:
Robert Frost is always linked to the land of cold winters in thenortheastern United States, the area called New England. Yet he camefrom the other side of the country, San Francisco, California. Hewas born there in eighteen-seventy-four. He lived in Californiaduring his early childhood.
This man who was born in the West and became linked with NewEngland was named for the chief southern general in America’s CivilWar. The general’s name was Robert Edward Lee. The poet was namedRobert Lee Frost, because his father wanted to honor the general.
Someone once asked another American writer, Ernest Hemingway, howto become a writer. The best thing, he said, was to have an unhappychildhood. If this is true, Robert Frost’s childhood was unhappyenough to make him a very good writer.
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VOICE ONE:
Robert Frost’s father was a reporter who wanted to be apolitician. He often drank too much alcohol and became angry. Robertwas the victim of his anger. He was eleven when his father died.
His mother tried to protect him from his father’s anger. Somepeople think she protected him too much. As a child, Robert wasafraid of the dark. All his life he suffered from imaginarysicknesses.
VOICE TWO:
Frost’s mother was from New England. After her husband died, shemoved back there. She supported her children by teaching school. Yetshe got more enjoyment from reading and writing poetry.
Frost finished high school in eighteen-ninety-one. He and a girl,Elinor White, had the best record of the students graduating thatyear. He married Elinor three years later. She rejected him atfirst, but finally agreed to marry him. This rejection led to a lackof trust in their marriage. It made Frost say this: “I could loseeverything and not be surprised.”
VOICE ONE:
After high school, Frost’s grandfather offered to pay his costsat Dartmouth College. Frost left the school after a few months. Hedid not like it. He spent the next few years working at differentjobs. At one time, he worked in a factory. Later, he repaired shoes.He was a teacher. He was a reporter. Always, he wrote poetry.
VOICE TWO:
Frost attended Harvard University for two years. After that, hereturned to the many jobs he held before. And he continued to writepoetry. He said that until nineteen-thirteen, he earned only aboutten dollars a year from writing.
For a while, Frost tried to take care of a farm in the state ofNew Hampshire. He was not a successful farmer. During this time ofworking and travelling from job to job, he and his wife had fourchildren. Since he earned very little money, his family was alwayspoor.
VOICE ONE:
Robert Frost saw himself becoming more and more like his father,treating his family badly. He became very unhappy with himself andwith his life. He even thought about ending his life. Innineteen-twelve, he decided to try to make a new start. He took hisfamily to Britain. The cost of living was low. And there was aninterest in what was then called a “new poetry. “
In Britain, Frost found a publisher for his first book of poems.The book was called “A Boy’s Will.” When it appeared innineteen-thirteen, Frost received high praise from British readers.Praise was something he had not received in his own country.
Ezra Pound, another American poet living in Britain, read thepoems and liked them very much. He wrote a magazine report aboutFrost. He also helped get Frost’s second book of poems published inAmerica. That book was called “North of Boston.”
VOICE TWO:
Many readers consider “North of Boston” to be Frost’s best bookof poems. In Britain, it was praised even more than his first book.Readers saw the way he took simple material and constructed from ita world of new meanings. They saw the way he spoke with a voice thatsounded like common speech.
What they failed to see was the differences Frost found betweenwhat was seen and the person doing the seeing. This was what hecalled “the outer and inner weather.”
In nineteen-fifteen, both of Frost’s books were published in theUnited States. He felt that his books had “gone home,” and he shouldgo home, too. When he reached America, he was surprised by thepraise he received and the acceptance of American publishers.
In the words of the poem he read at President Kennedy’sinauguration many years later: “The land was his before he was theland’s.”
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VOICE ONE:
When Robert Frost returned to America from Britain, he boughtanother farm in New Hampshire. To feed himself and his family, hedepended on the sales of his books and papers. He also earned moneyby speaking at universities.
Success did not ease his life. And it did not change the way hethought and acted. The gentle, wise person who spoke from his poemswas the man Frost wanted to be. He knew, however — and his familyknew — he was not that man.
Tragic events affected him. His son killed himself. His wife wasoften sick, and his daughter became mentally sick. Frost, too,suffered from his own imaginary sicknesses. Through his poems,however, he lived a different life.
VOICE TWO:
Frost was a worker in words, a craftsman. He tried to captureexactly the speech of the people of New England. He used simpledescriptions that were easily understood. He talked about simple,natural things: trees, the weather, the seasons, night and day. Inan early poem he wrote:
NARRATOR:
I’m going out to clean the pasture spring; I’ll only stop to rakethe leaves away (And wait to watch the water clear, I may): Isha’n’t be gone long. — You come too. I’m going out to fetch thelittle calf That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young It totterswhen she licks it with her tongue. I sha’n’t be gone long. — Youcome too.
VOICE ONE:
Robert Frost said that reading his poems should begin withpleasure and end in wisdom. Yet as he grew older, his simple idea ofthe world became more difficult. His world was more touched withsadness. He wrote more about fear, about being alone, about losingwhatever he had.
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We will continue our story of American poet Robert Frost nextweek.
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VOICE TWO:
This Special English program was written by Richard Thorman. Itwas produced by Christine Johnson. I’m Rich Kleinfeldt.
VOICE ONE:
And I’m Shirley Griffith. Join us again next week for anotherprogram about People in America on VOA.