help with robert frost bereft

Welcome to A2K, colleen. It would help if you would post the poem by Frost.

how can i do that
how

Well, dear. Do you not have the poem before you?

ok i posted it
its posted

I don't see it, Colleen. Exactly where did you post the poem

Where had I heard this wind before
Change like this to a deeper roar?
What would it take my standing there for,
Holding open a restive door,
Looking down hill to a frothy shore?
Summer was past and the day was past.
Sombre clouds in the west were massed.
Out on the porch's sagging floor,
Leaves got up in a coil and hissed,
Blindly striking at my knee and missed.
Something sinister in the tone
Told me my secret my be known:
Word I was in the house alone
Somehow must have gotten abroad,
Word I was in my life alone,
Word I had no one left but God.

Colleen, what's your best guess?

Wow! That is one by Frost that I have never read. I notice that he refers to a wind that he has never heard before, and describes the leaves as a coiled snake waiting to strike.

What do you think this represents? Is it fear; death; insecurity?

in the first lines the speaker is asking a question. he doesnt know where or when he has heard it. its like he cant remember when he heard it.

i think the poem is refering to death. when the warmth has ended and the cold is knocking at the door, a lonely feeling of reality sets in. it ends saying that all we really have here is god and ourselves for company.

LittleK, I have promises to keep. <smile> will you lead our Colleen through the unusual use of Frost's "word" in the poem. Quite intriguing, really. It may be very akin to Stopping by Woods on A Snowy night.

oooohhh, I am not a parser of poetry, Letty. You keep your promise and Colleen can figure this one out. Maybe there will be more help.

if i could figure this one out i wouldnt be asking for help.

can any one else put there poetic knowledge forth

hence i have a 2 page paper due in morning

Colleen, you are on the right track, but let me say this. I think he may be weighing the possibility of simply dropping out of society. I think Frost always wanted to be alone with his creativity and his thoughts, but he knows that in order to be productive, he must visit earth. The word, I think, refers to God. And the "snake" of leaves to Satan. Start your paper with a rhetorical question"

What does a poet want when he writes? Then go on to take each line and paraphrase it. In your concluding paragraph, sum up your own conclusions. You seem very bright, and I think you can do it, honey. Let us know how it turns out.

thanks for the help, im gonna get started

Wasn't Robert Frost the coolest? Here he takes on Death finding him alone and yet he's able to make it a tale about a man standing on a windy porch near the sea.

Don't we all know that Death is seeking us? Will find us someday? But we think somehow this secret is just that, hidden from Death somehow.

That morning on the porch with the remembered wind in his ears and the leaves snake-striking at his knees he remembers that Death has never been out of the loop and that now that he was at the stage in life where he was alone except for God, Death has been reminded of his corporal presence.

There is the poet standing on his porch. You or I would have hardly noticed the swirling leaves, he sees destiny.

Joe(thanks. I haven't seen that one in years. My favorite is Maple.)Nation

Robert Frpst was the coolest, indeed. Dag and I discussed him today as we drove back from maple sugar hunting in New Hampshire. Neither she nor I likes poetry, really, but we both like R F.

Im no Frost expert by any means , but , like Steinbeck, Ive studied alot of his life stats. Frost has here, a title of BEREFT ( as in...he is bereaved, AS IN LOSING SOMEONE DEAR)
At this writingFrost had already lost 2 kids, had his daughter Marjorie in Johns Hopkins for heart trouble and his wife in periodic care for arhythmias whenBereft was published in a book entitled WEST RUNNING BROOK. There were a number of poems in that book, including Acceptance, which was a tale from a birds POV about "what will be will be".

Frost was, by this time already a sort of recluse when he was in his late 40s and suffered from depression that seemed to begin big time when his sister Jeanne died, they were pretty close . That, accompanied by his daughters poor health (she later died in childbirth) and his wife's lingering condition (she too died while on a "rest" vacation in Key West Florida) ,during these gathering tragedies, Frost tried to "hold it together"but his real mind state was mirrored by his work pretty much . He did imbibe a bit and was often despondent and often just hung over (remember he lost four of his 6 kids )
I think that West Running Brook was pub'd in 1928 so Id look and see if theres some clue in Frosts life as to who died most recently. My guess is that he and his daughter Mildred were good buddies and she tagged along a lot cause she wrote poetry also.
My guess is that Frost, as personal as he was in his metaphors, was cryingout here about the gathering loneliness that his life was already beginning to contain as he grew older.Its only a guess but Frost wasnt a really deep poet anyway, he was damn good reading though, I mean his phrases were just pure , well, poetry.