Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel with the World Page #2

This time we're gonna have it right,

we're gonna have occasions...

like this Where Im with my crowd.

We're gonna have the crowd in it

and some other things.

They were with me

today on shipboard...

on the Essex,

the old carrier, you know.

I had eight grandchildren with me.

I mean great grandchildren.

Eight great grandchildren,

two families.

All between- I guess, between

nine and 10 and 12...

all, the whole bunch of 'em.

Maybe 10, 13, 14, one of them.

And I was with the commander.

And the old subject came up

of peace and war.

That's that category.

And I had to have another think at it.

That always means another say to it.

And I said to him,

Peace is something...

that you only get by war

or the threat of war...

however tacit the threat.

And he nodded grimly.

And that's something that

we all Want, the peace.

And we are all thinking about it.

Anything like that that bothers me

all the time or something comes up...

and I say a new one to it.

It appeases me for the moment.

But I'd had a fresh think.

The occasion-

The occasion had given me

a fresh think.

And there's usually an occasion.

I don't know- meeting somebody

or reading somethin' in the paper...

hearing something about the World.

It's all just- just this one thing:

A think.

And the excitement

you get out of havin' a think...

that you Want to pass to other people.

And sometimes, as I say,

when it's too much for me...

and I can't say anything to it,

I say, Me for the woods.

- [Audience Laughs]

- That's one of my oldest sayings.

Doesnt matter What it is,

family troubles...

any kind, I say,

Me for the woods.

[ Birds Tweeting ]

This is a regular spring thing...

to get here and see

what's lived through the Winter.

It took a long time to be a Vermonter.

I came here in '20.

See how many years ago that is.

And for years

I wasn't called a Vermonter.

They'd have meetings and things

about poetry...

but they considered me an outsider.

Then this last year they made me

Poet of Vermont.

[ Man Reciting]

Oh, the little town of Ripton...

up near the mountaintop,

Where city folks come and go...

and for a short time stop...

to view the mountain scenery

and breathe the mountain air...

and wonder at us simple folks

who get our living there.

It is Robert Frost the poet

that put Ripton on the map.

While others we are proud to know,

he is our leading champ.

For others our esteem may grow.

None shall go above him.

For he loves man and nature so,

that is why we love him.

[Man ] Built that lawn for him.

I put that lawn in.

And though there's

a number of things...

that he can think of-

[ Laughs ]

He's a nice man. Nice man.

-[ Man] Do you like his poetry'?

- Yes, I like it very well.

It, uh- I think he's one

of the most famous in Vermont.

[ Woman ]

I think perhaps with Sandburg...

he's one of the truly great

American poets that we have.

At any rate, in my opinion.

Perhaps in Mr. Kennedy's.

[ Man ]

What is your favorite Frost poem?

I think I like Birches.

Birches.

Birches.

[ Chuckles ]

[ Man ] Which of Robert Frost's

poems is your favorite?

- Who?

- Robert Frost.

- [Water Running]

- Funny world, isn't it?

[ Frost ] Where you came from

is of very great importance.

Your family ways.

I was brought up

and started life in San Francisco.

My father was Chairman

of the Democratic City Committee...

when Cleveland was elected.

I never Went to school

till I was about 12 years old.

And I wasn't very well. And I Went

downtown with my father all the time.

I had all of my of my noon meals

in the big headquarters...

of the democratic party, the saloon,

Abe Levy's saloon...

and I was a sort of...

a political kid around.

L- I came East.

My mother would leave us at

Omaha, then Chicago...

to recheck my father's coffin

with me and my sister.

I was 12 years old.

And I carried other people around

that couldn't stand up...

when they were so grieved.

So there, I guess

that's how I brought life.

[ Growling, Barking ]

[ Dog Barks, Growls ]

[Frost Continues ] And I did

everything I had to do to get by.

Money, a little bit, you know,

working at this and that.

I worked on newspapers a little.

I didn't do very well.

I wasn't a very good reporter.

I was too shy.

I gravitated to the editorial page.

[ Chuckles ]

And we had a farm...

Where I could partly earn a living.

Didn't do it very well.

And I never was away from the farm

in the evening.

More than three years I think it was,

probably it was.

I think once I came home

as late as 8:
00.

We never Went to church.

We never Went to movies.

Never Went to anything.

And there was nothing

we were missing.

We were having a very nice time.

A nice little farm.

And children.

They had orchards and fruit...

and horse and cow and all that.

I only left it, drifted away from it...

for part-time teaching because

I wasn't quite earning a living.

And I think it came natural to do it.

My mother was a teacher...

and I drifted into it

for bread and butter...

and began teaching at a little

district school and things.

District school with 12 children.

I remember I had one that would

come and go in barefooted.

Come and go into my knee.

[Coughing]

I never got called a poet

till I was 40 or so.

And I always thought it was a praise

word that I couldn't use on myself.

It's a praise word.

You can write poetry, and I wrote it.

I don't know howl did it

and What would have happened...

if it hadn't come through

somewhere in the end.

My complete works are with me here.

Two books. A little new book

and a little old book.

And I think it adds up to about

maybe 700 pages in 70 years.

Ten pages a year, see.

Not many but still at it,

always about the same a year.

I don't calculate on it, but it turns

out to be about that much a year.

Probably twice that

I have thrown away.

And people ask

What poem you like best.

The poem I like best is one

somebodys just praised...

or the one Ive just written.

[ Frost Chuckles]

Or else I say you can't-

you don't like to tell

about your poems...

anymore than a mother does

about her children.

When she has five or six children...

she wouldn't tell you

which is her favorite.

She might have one...

maybe.

Maybe- She shouldnt.

She knows she shouldnt.

- [Audience Laughs]

- [ Frost Chuckles, Mutters]

I said to an audience the other day...

l-low many of you don't know...

'Stopping By Woods?

There was only one person

in 2,000 or 3,000 people...

- raised his hand... shamelessly.

- [Audience Laughs Loudly]

And then I- And a lady

had just asked me to say it.

I said, What in the world

do you Want me to say it for...

when you all know it better than I do?

You know? But I said it.

Just out of lenience.

Well, now Im gonna read to ya.

Now I out walking

the world desert...

and my shoe and my stocking

do me no hurt.

See Ive got to keep that little

rhyming Way all the Way through it.

- [Audience Laughs]

- See hurt, desert.

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