The Emotion of Poetry

Robert Frost has famously said, "A poem begins with a lump in the throat."

Those of us in Music City know this is the kind of poetry that drives country music. Poetry is not the vapid, dry lines of a Hallmark card--but language and rhyme which make the heart overflow.

Frost had many reasons for lumps in his throat--his personal life was full of tragedy, and he often suffered deep depression. He dropped out of Dartmouth to marry. His first son died of cholera at age three; a daughter died three days after birth . The next couple of years, his favorite sister died in a mental hospital and another daughter contracted tuberculosis from which she also died.His wife died of heart failure several years later. Another son became increasingly distraught and threatened suicide. Frost went to vsit him and talked him out of it, but as Frost returned home, his son shot himself. Yet another daughter had to be committed to a mental hospital.

Frost was later quoted, "In three words, I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."

WHEN

Daddy

left us,

he left his

bedroom slippers

beneath the sink

on the bathroom floor.

When

Mama put them

in the giveaway bag

for the poor,

I knew

this time

Daddy

had gone

out the door

for good.

Lee Bennett Hopkins from Been to Yesterday, Poems of a Life