A poem by one of America's best-loved poets, Robert Frost, has been discovered 88 years after it was handwritten in the front of a book and will be published next week.
The poem was found by a graduate student among uncatalogued books and manuscripts bought by the University of Virginia and once owned by Frost's friend, Frederic Melcher, founder of publishing industry trade journal Publishers Weekly.
The 35-line poem, called "War Thoughts at Home" and dated 1918, was apparently inspired by the death of a fellow poet in World War I.
Student Robert Stilling said he was alerted to the poem by a 1947 letter by Melcher in which he referred to an unpublished poem handwritten in a copy of Frost's book "North of Boston".
Stilling said in a paper that when he read the letter it set off "little scholarly alarm bells" and sent him looking for the book at the Charlottesville university library. Frost died in 1963 aged 88.
It took several months to verify the handwriting and check whether the poem had been published before, said Kevin Morrissey, managing editor of The Virginia Quarterly Review which has permission from Frost's estate to publish the poem.
Morrissey said the poem was very sombre.
"You can tell Frost is troubled by what is going on in Europe at the time," Morrissey told Reuters.
Academics believe it was written in response to the death of Frost's friend and poet Edward Thomas, who died in the trenches in France in 1917.
Frost, who wrote such poems as "The Road Not Taken" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", was in Britain at the start of the war and had befriended Thomas.
The poem focuses on a woman in a snow-bound house thinking of soldiers in France and watching some blue jays fighting outside. Here are two stanzas from the poem:
And one says to the rest
"We must just watch our chance
And escape one by one-
Though the fight is no more done
Than the war is in France."
Than the war is in France!
She thinks of a winter camp
Where soldiers for France are made.
She draws down the window shade
And it glows with an early lamp.
©
Here's an article describing the discovery: [www.boston.com] />
Les
"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the short one,
And I got there before you."
~ Oscar Wilde (the uncyclopedia one) on Robert Frost
A war poem seems fitting for all generations, too? I wonder why Frost never sought to have it published in his lifetime. I also wonder how more unpublished poems there are out there floating around and waiting to be discovered.
732
732
It's got to be higher than that, consider that Emily D. never intended to publish her works, that's 1700+ right there. There's got to be literally thousands of undiscovered works by known poets.
Les
I am convinced of my correctness, whilst you are merely speculating.
See me when they get to 733 and I'll humbly apologize
Walt Whitman could write a couple hundred poems before breakfast, he must have lost at least a few of those in the dryer.
Les
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/2022 07:37AM by lg.
Walt Whitman's Birthplace (the Walt Whitman Mall) is fairly close to where I live...I visited there once and after seeing the various 19th centruy artifacts, asked if there was any discrepancy between the poem i Sing The Body Electric, and the fact that they didn't even hardly HAVE electric back then
I didn't see a dryer there either, and these historical places never seem to have preserved the clothesline
[uncyclopedia.org]
Whitman's got to be rolling over in his grave, there are dryers and there are dryers: [k41.pbase.com] />
"In 1862, Whitman came face-to-face with the tragedy of war when he travelled to visit his brother George who had been wounded in battle. Whitman was so moved by what he witnessed in the hospital that he traveled to Washington D.C. and remained there as an unofficial nurse in the army hospital. Possessing no medical training whatsover, he used the healing power of poetry to help speed the recovering soldiers to the cold embrace of eternal slumber.
Also, he pretty much single-handedly killed the nurse fantasy for a whole generation of young men. "
Listen up: [66.102.7.104] />
Les
The main source used by the movie "Gangs of New York" in replicating the accent and speech patterns of the nineteenth century came from a recording made in 1892 by the now deceased poet, Walt Whitman.
more info can be found here:
[herbertasbury.com]
I prefer, Robin Williams' interpretation of him in Dead Poets Society: [www.wavlist.com] />
Les
Looks like the VQR folks have decided to be avaricious instead of benevolent with their little gem:
[www.vqronline.org] />
"Please note that VQR is honoring the request of Robert Frost's estate by not making newly-discovered poem “War Thoughts at Home” available to the general public. It is available only to VQR subscribers. Subscribe now for instant access to this and the past 31 years of VQR's archives."
Lemme see now, RLF's estate wants VQR to only make it available to its paid subscribers? Hmmm ...
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/04/2022 02:51PM by Hugh Clary.
They can stick it up their BFA
As an aside, I got an e-mail from a VQR rep to my Netzero addy again stressing that the Frost estate folks are putting the restrictions on VQR. In other words, VQR have permission to publish in their mag, but not on the web site.
When the Frost is on the pumpkin......
In other words, VQR have permission to publish in their mag, but not on the web site.
Yeah, it's probably those nasty cut and pasters at Poem Hunter that prompted that action.
Les
<"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the short one,
And I got there before you."
~ Oscar Wilde (the uncyclopedia one) on Robert Frost>
Clever of Wilde - he died 16 years before the Road Not Taken was published!
Marian, Uncyclopedia posts all sorts of nonsense and attributes it to Oscar. If you wish you may post an article there, and make up something completely outrageous verified by your very own Wilde quotation.
Les
[www.mcphee.com] />
though the link is from uncyclopedia, I assure you, the figure is real
“It's gotten to the point where anyone can make up quotes about Oscar Wilde and say they're from Oscar Wilde.”
~ Oscar Wilde on Oscar Wilde
also by Oscar Wilde?
Wrong forum, this is the poetry one, not the royalty. So, if you want to post here, at least make it rhyme.
And I have the feeling I recognise the style and content....
It's funny how the autumn brings
a Cherrytreeinspring !