[HN Gopher] Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (1923)
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Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (1923)
Author : keepamovin
Score : 148 points
Date : 2024-12-22 11:21 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (poets.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (poets.org)
| r9295 wrote:
| I assume every English teacher of quality must have gone through
| this poem with their class. Mine certainly did! This reminds me,
| I should write to her and thank her for introducing me to such
| enchantment
| layer8 wrote:
| Poet name checks out. ;)
| chimpanzee wrote:
| To anyone new to poetry, you'll gain much more from the poem by
| reading it aloud rather than silently.
|
| Other tips: https://www.poetryoutloud.org/tips-on-reciting
| adzm wrote:
| For those looking for more poets that have a similar feel to
| Robert Frost, I can recommend Gary Snyder and Sydney Lea
| ckmate-king-2 wrote:
| Highly recommend John Ciardi's essay on this poem, "Robert Frost:
| The Way to the Poem" (1958).
| https://issues.aperture.org/article/1958/3/3/robert-frost-th...
| davidanekstein wrote:
| Reading that made me want to revisit Pale Fire
| 01100011 wrote:
| The allusion to trespassing makes me thankful I live in the
| western US where much more of the land is public. I don't know
| why that's my takeaway from reading this, but there you have it.
| gausswho wrote:
| Having lived bi-coastally, I agree this is an idiosyncratic
| distinction between east and west. Particularly northeast and
| west. And we have great mounds of thinkers who have raised the
| thought. Thoreau. Steinbeck. Kesey.
|
| How wonderful it is to walk into woods and cliffs by compass
| and pack. No deeds or POSTED signs. No orange toque as
| deference to hunters.
|
| Yet the coast of Maine is mostly parceled off to old money.
| Mill towns evaporate into poisoned ghosts. And Adirondack Park
| defenders chattle on about 'public-private partnerships' as if
| the National Park system was never conceived.
| ekidd wrote:
| I don't actually think there's an allusion to trespassing here.
| The narrator is passing through someone's woodlot far from the
| village, which is still accepted behavior in large portions of
| northern New England.
|
| Much of Frost's poetry is about Vermont or New Hampshire, and
| Vermont's private woodland is very open (except in a few towns)
| and has always been so. This is thanks to the Vermont
| Constitution's provisions on hunting:
|
| _The inhabitants of this State shall have liberty in
| seasonable times, to hunt and fowl on the lands they hold, and
| on other lands not inclosed... under proper regulations, to be
| made and provided by the General Assembly._
|
| If land isn't fenced off or actually posted (and posting large
| woodlands is deliberately difficult in Vermont), then it
| doesn't count as "inclosed."
|
| And Vermont's culture still supports this. There are hundreds
| of acres of unposted private land near my house which are owned
| by old-school Vermonters, and I am absolutely welcome to hike
| them.
|
| Maine has a slightly different set of rules, and posting land
| is easier. But once you get away from the coast and into the
| serious forest, it's not that different from Vermont. And as
| far as I know, New Hampshire also allows hunting on unposted
| woodland.
| archiepeach wrote:
| Humble plug for the poetry app I created for iOS. The Poetry
| Corner is written in React Native, and contains over 40,000
| public-domain poems, and surfaces the classics in a beautiful and
| distraction free design!
|
| https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/the-poetry-corner/id1602552624
| gausswho wrote:
| This is just what I needed as I stare out the snowy window
| scene.
|
| A request: would be nice if it did not constrain to the
| dimensions of a phone when on an iPad.
|
| Thanks!
| david_shaw wrote:
| This is one of my favorite poems -- perhaps because it was my
| first in-depth exposure to poetry.
|
| In high school, I was assigned a poetry explication: it was a
| combination of poetic analysis and public speaking (I had to
| deliver my work to the class), and it was a major part of my
| grade.
|
| I chose this poem because it was one of the few poems I'd ever
| read.
|
| I'd never spent much time with poetry, but the hours I dedicated
| to really thinking about (and _feeling_ ) this poem made a
| lasting impact. I don't remember the grade I got, but the
| assignment absolutely kindled my lifelong love of poetry.
|
| I spend more time on translations of older Chinese poetry these
| days (I highly recommend Red Pine's translation of Wei Ying-wu's
| _In Such Hard Times_ ), but I'll always remember _Stopping by
| Woods on a Snowy Evening._
| re wrote:
| There have been many settings of this poem to music but the best
| known one (at least by choral nerds) might be the unauthorized
| one by Eric Whitacre: https://ericwhitacre.com/music-
| catalog/sleep
|
| A recording with the original lyrics exists:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDH5R_BgheI
| bjterry wrote:
| YouTube also has a recording of Robert Frost himself reciting
| the poem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rebVUgCgSAU
| imacomputertoo wrote:
| No poem had ever made me feel the crunch of snow under my boots
| or see the flakes floating down like this poem. It's visceral.
| paulcole wrote:
| > The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
|
| > But I have promises to keep,
|
| > And miles to go before I sleep
|
| I've been saving up to sponsor a bench on my favorite trail and
| this is what I'm thinking of putting on the plaque.
| jessekv wrote:
| Thank you to those who occasionally post non-hacking related
| material here, and everyone else who votes it up. Keeps the place
| interesting ;)
| chasil wrote:
| This poem is from the book _New Hampshire_.
|
| Another famous poem from that book is this one:
|
| _Some say the world will end in fire,
|
| Some say in ice.
|
| From what I've tasted of desire
|
| I hold with those who favor fire.
|
| But if it had to perish twice,
|
| I think I know enough of hate
|
| To say that for destruction ice
|
| Is also great And would suffice._
|
| https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44263/fire-and-ice
|
| The title poem of the book, _New Hampshire,_ is at least ten
| pages long, but ends ironically that Frost is living in Vermont.
| nickmp wrote:
| Wonderful, thank you.
| doctoboggan wrote:
| This is my all time favorite poem simply because it is able to
| evoke such strong visualizations for me. I can really see the
| rider so viscerally and no other non visual media is able to
| replicate that. I don't really understand how but Robert Frost
| was on to something that no one else I've found was.
|
| Seeing this in HN makes me think there are others who feel
| similar which I think is great. Anyone have similar media that
| evokes a similar feeling?
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| My friend grew up in Derry a few hundred yards away from the
| west-running brook.
| infiniteregrets wrote:
| my middle school English teacher used to say the last four lines
| of this poem often, but I never understood why... or maybe I do
| now
| kevmo wrote:
| Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon
| cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre
| cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
| The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The
| ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all
| conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate
| intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand;
| Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming!
| Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of
| Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands
| of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a
| man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is
| moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows
| of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again;
| but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep
| Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what
| rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches
| towards Bethlehem to be born?
| every wrote:
| William Butler Yeats...
| lukego wrote:
| _The Ode Less Travelled_ by Stephen Fry could make a great
| Christmas present.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I use the last few lines, whenever I'm nearing the end of a
| coding binge, but don't have the application up to snuff, yet.
| epmoyer wrote:
| This poem has a special place in my heart because I learned it
| when I was about 10 years old from the TRS-80 "User's Manual For
| Level 1" book. See page 209!
|
| https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/system-80/software-manu...
|
| That's one of the first programs I ever keyed in. It would print
| the stanzas out slowly, pausing in between, all the while
| "snowing" pixels onto the screen. I fell in love with programming
| then, and it's been magic ever since. Here's to a few more
| miles...
| domsom wrote:
| Lacking a TRS 80, YT has it as well:
| https://youtu.be/j-Zcog5o_p0?si=p-zMq2mnYwcONqmA
| otherayden wrote:
| Robert frost makes me proud to be from New England. What a
| beautiful poem
| theodpHN wrote:
| Genius vs. Wikipedia: Who explains it better?
|
| https://genius.com/816206
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stopping_by_Woods_on_a_Snowy_E...
| klik99 wrote:
| Last time I read this was in high school, it hits different at
| 40, HN is probably the only social media where I can be
| pleasantly surprised
| ofrzeta wrote:
| No one mentioning the movie "Telefon" (1977) where this poem is
| used to wake up the sleepers :)
|
| This is where I learned of the German translation (watching the
| movie in German): Des Waldes Dunkel zieht mich
| an, doch muss zu meinem Wort ich stehen, und Meilen
| gehen, bevor ich schlafen kann.
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