Robert Frost by Robert Frost

Author:Robert Frost
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2009-02-23T16:00:00+00:00

My kind of fooling

In an appearance at Harvard University on December 3, 1956, held under the auspices of its Morris Gray Poetry Fund, Mr. Frost made near the beginning of his remarks a reference to the celebrated portrait painter Charles Hopkinson (1869–1962), who lived in the North Shore area of Massachusetts and maintained a studio at Boston.

I THOUGHT I would begin today in a way I heard another poet friend of mine begin once. He said, “This is the first time I have declared myself in public on the subject of—” Well I’ve changed the subject; never mind what his subject was. But this is the first time I have declared myself in public on the subject of whom I’m writing these poems for.

This was brought up in my mind by Mr. Hopkinson, the artist. He asked me how near I felt to the audience I’m writing to. And he meant me to ask him how near he felt to the man whose portrait he was painting. That’s pretty close up, isn’t it? Mine is certainly more remote than that. […]

But it’s a question that I’m often asked: who I’m writing the poems for.

Some singer said the other day—in answer to the question which she liked of her own songs best—she said, “The one you like.” Nice answer.

Which one of my poems do I like best? The one I heard last praised. And that’s no jest, though you laugh. It’s true that I am very happy about a poem for a few hours after I’ve heard it praised, quite a little while—maybe all night; sleep well on it.

But when you ask me further, I think I can say. I can give you some idea. I wrote it for all the nice people I’ve been thrown with. And I’ve been thrown with some pretty nice ones, intelligent and free and happy—know how to take my kind of play in conversation.

Probably my education was in conversation, all the way along, without my knowing it. I said in verse somewhere:

It takes a lot of in- and outdoor schooling

To be admitted to my kind of fooling.26

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