13 August 2009

Done with Robert Frost, huzzah!

32*. The Poetry of Robert Frost: all eleven of his books--complete by Robert Frost, edited by Edward Lathem (2/5)

Overall not my thing but there were a number of poems I did quite like:
"Revelation"
"October"
"The Mountain"
"The Code"
"The Road Not Taken"
"Christmas Trees"
"New Hampshire"
"Fragmentary Blue"
"Fire and Ice"
"Dust of Snow"
"Nothing Gold Can Stay"
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
"For once, then something"
"Canis Major"
"The Door in the Dark"
"The Armful"
"On the Heart's Beginning to Cloud the Mind"
"Lost in Heaven"
"Afterflakes"
"A Cliff Dwelling"
"It Bids Pretty Fair"
"Any Size We Please"
"One More Feeling"
"How Hard it is to Keep From Being King When it's in You and in the Situation"
So then, why read 500+ pages of Robert Frost if most of it isn't my taste? Well, I'm still working on the great read & weed. I've thinned my library quite a bit this summer, culling volumes for which I don't have some passion or connection.

I should've left the Frost on the shelf though because I knew going in that I wouldn't get rid of it. I received the book as an award in high school and it has a nice commemorative bookplate with my name in it. Therefore I will skip reading the other two books-cum-awards for now.

When I was in LA, a former grad school classmate staying with us wanted to leave behind his tome of Roger Ebert's movie reviews. I declined at first but then he wrote me an inscription and handed it over: Claire, may you have all the success of Roger Ebert without the weight gain. I ended up keeping that book longer than I would have solely because of his note. I'm a sucker for an inscription, especially one that makes me laugh.


*To help me endure all of Frost's poems, I did list his eleven books separately for my yearly count. Felt fair to me.

2 comments:

  1. That's an awesome inscription. I'm always terrible at coming up with them, which is a problem when I give readings. How do you say, "I know, I wrote a whole novel, but I can't think of one creative sentence to write underneath your name"? But it's usually true.

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  2. I liked it so much I almost tore that page out but decided to leave the book intact when I donated it.

    Also, now you tell me you're terrible at inscriptions which figures since I just got my copy of your new book today. ;) Consider this your heads-up. Loads of indeterminate time to mull it over.

    I sympathize though. It's like signing yearbooks and for people you know even less. I always felt badly when I wrote "Have a nice summer" or the like to someone who came up with something meaningful to say.

    The upside of readings is that you can probably write the same cool sentence for nearly everyone there & not have it matter. Or maybe rotate between 2 or 3 options in case people come together. I think that'd be my approach.

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