Poetry Pairs, 1
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" & loud cars
Hello, Poetry Friend
I had a wonderful English professor at Baylor University named Ann Miller. She memorized poetry, and it oozed out of her like Pacific Northwest rain. Then I read a remembrance of her by another Baylor professor, Bob Baird, who remembered Professor Miller quoting Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall” at a young couple canoodling on a bench. He also recalled a time when she asked students on the first day of school to recite a line of poetry.
One student managed to remember this old chestnut: “I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”
Professor Miller asked the student if she knew the title of the poem and who wrote it. She didn’t.
“I died a thousand deaths as I replied in a squeaky voice that it was my father’s standard reply to ‘Are we there yet?’ on long trips.”
Professor Miller’s response? “Wonderful.”
Yes, wonderful. Wonderful that a father remembered that line of poetry. Wonderful that he turned it into a family joke. Wonderful that the daughter not only learned the line but an association with it.
When we memorize poetry we give it an association — oh! It’s the trip poem!
When I recorded myself reciting the trip poem (aka Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”), a loud car drove past my open window as I spoke the last lines, the same ones the student quoted to Professor Miller. So now whenever I encounter the poem, I hear in my head a loud car. And when I hear a loud car, I recall Frost’s poem. I couldn’t dislodge those lines from my soul if I tried.
We spent fourteen weeks this summer along the Hero’s Poetry Journey, reading poems and — hopefully — learning at least a snippet of them by heart. Why? Because we never know when we’ll need a poem.
For the next few weeks we’ll make some Poetry Pairs. We’ll pair poems with specific places or memories or books or movies. Let’s start with ol’ Bobby Frost, shall we?
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
– Robert FrostPoetry Journal
Read Robert Frost’s poem, which you’ve probably encountered before.
Jot down what you notice, what you like, what you don’t, what questions you have, and at least one way in which the poem speaks to you.
Read the poem aloud every day for a week. (Until I share the next poem, on Wednesday.) Is a pairing arising?
Write your own poem about “Stopping by Woods” and the new association is has for you. (Mine is at meganwillome.com.) If you like, email me what you write.
Happy poeming!
Megan