Thursday, April 10, 2008

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


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