THIS IS (NOT) THE TIME

 

    

                             

     

     1)    This is not the time to quarrel and fight

            This is not the time to rely on brutal might;

            This is not the time to go for a ride

            This is not the time to show egoistic pride;

            This is not the time to go to temples great

            This is not the time to enjoy with your mates;

            This is the time to help others in need

            This is the time to check your selfish greed.

 

  2)     This is not the time to waste your wealth  

           This is not the time to ignore your health

           This is not the time to visit movie halls

           This is not the time to rush to the malls;

           This is not the time to visit crowded spots

           This is not the time to go to clubs and booze a lot;

           This is the time to show our deep concern

           As corpses lie in line waiting to burn.

 

  3)     This is not the time to go to functions grand

           This is not the time with friends to shake hands;

           This is not the time to go and freely play

           In crowded beaches or in clubs to stay;

           This is not the time to lose our hearts and grieve

           This is not the time our hopes and efforts to leave;

           This is the time to be together and fight

          This is the time to use our knowledge bright. 

        

4)        This is not the time to flout precautions and rules

           This is not the time to rush to doom like fools;

           This is not the time without a mask to go

           This is not the time to make a colourful show;

           This is not the time to move freely as you like

           This is not the time to shout wildly on a bike;

           This is the time to sanitize everything

           This is the time to wash whatever you bring. 

 

5)        This is not the time to take anything with ease

           This is not the time to welcome dire disease;

           This is not the time to mix and merrily greet

           This is not the time to chat with friends and meet;

           This is not the time to neglect sacrifices made

           This is not the time to let their glories fade;

           This is the time to honour noble hearts

          To honour those who against Covid fought.

 

6)     This is not the time to sit idle and sad

        This is not the time to get depressed and mad;

        This is not the time to indulge in habits bad

        This is not the time to speak harsh and hard; 

        This is not the time to escape your work

        This is not the time your duties to shirk;

        This is the time to wash your hands clean

        This is the time to be cool and serene. 

 

7)    This is not the time to rob those lying dead

       This is not the time to deprive people of their bread;

       This is not the time to grab exorbitant fee

       From patients struggling for breath, can’t you see?

       This is not the time to squeeze patients for gains

       This is not the time to aggravate their pains;

       This is the time to keep our surroundings neat

       This is the time our plants and beasts to kindly treat.

 

8)   This is the time to help the people poor

      This is the time to keep them safe and secure;

      This is the time for some relief to find

      In useful works nourishing your mind;

      This is the time to live with care at home

      This is the time to stay safe and not recklessly roam.

      This is the time to procure vaccine’s shield

      This is the time to wear masks and not to yield.  

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           25th May, 2021                        Somaseshu Gutala

     

             

                                                               

 

 

  

   

 

  

   

    

      

 

  

           

 

 

A Note on Robert Frost’s Poem “BLUEBERRIES”

 

Children picking berries

                            

Clusters of blueberries

                      

                           

Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963)

This poem was written by Frost in 1912 and published in “North of Boston” in 1914. Robert Frost describes the interaction between two persons who passed by a pasture owned by Mortenson. They were surprised to see blueberry bushes with a luxuriant growth of ripe blue berries “as big as the end of your thumb”, “real sky-blue and heavy” which make a drumming sound when they are collected in a pail. “And presto they’re up all around you” convey the speed and dense growth of the blueberry bushes. The second speaker enquired where he had seen the bushes. The first speaker describes how the whole woods there were cut off two years ago and the whole area was burnt down by fire. The second speaker spoke about the magical growth of blueberries where no shady pines or a blade of grass was not left to grow on the burnt land. The first speaker speculates that the blueberries might have grown drawing nourishment from the soot or charcoal of the burnt pasture. He felt the taste of soot in them and also attributes their ebony colour to the burnt soot of the burnt pasture. The blue film seen on them is like thin mist or tanned colour of fruit-gatherers and it goes away by the mere touch of a hand.

 The second speaker then refers to Mortenson who owns that pasture. The owner of that place does not seem to care about these berries and feigns that he has no knowledge about the growth of blueberries in his land just to hide this fact from others. The second speaker asks whether he has seen Loren and his large family. The first speaker replies that Loren’s shrewd countenance seems to say that he had left a patch of land with many berries as if by mistake “to ripen too long” which may be taken away by other intruders. The second speaker remarks that Loren is a very thrifty person. The first speaker replies that he has to be thrifty as he has to feed so many children mainly on berries throughout the year. “He has brought them all up on wild berries, they say like birds.” They also store many berries and sell them at the shop to buy their necessities. Frost portrays here the hardships faced by poor farmers in his area.

The second speaker remarks “It’s a nice way to live/Just taking what Nature is willing to give” without exploiting her resources with plough and harrow. Frost hints at the exploitation  of Nature by  man  who destroys natural surroundings to satisfy his overambitious greed.

 The first speaker comments on the subtle behaviour of Loren’s children. They seem to be unconcerned and solemn though they knew about every place where the berries grew on hills and marshy ground.  The first speaker describes the pretentious and greedy nature of Morton by describing his meeting with him. Once he went to meet Loren and asked him to tell if any fruit was there for picking. Loren in a polite way answered that there were no berries found and cunningly enquired his wife whether any berries were seen for plucking.

 The first speaker continues that Loren thinks that “all the fruit that grows wild is for him.” Now they can avail the chance of picking berries which escaped the notice of greedy Loren. They would pick berries the next morning when the sun shines warm on the wet vines. The first speaker recollects the past memories of picking berries in stealth like mischievous goblins hiding in the underground. They used to go round picking berries. When one thought that he missed his friend, he heard his friend saying that they had stood near the bird’s nest and hence the bird was seen flying around them as if in a complaining tone.  While picking berries when his friend went far away, he used to shout thinking that his friend had lost his way. But actually his friend was seen standing quite nearby. Then both of them reflected that they would miss happy moments of picking berries if Loren’s children found out that place. They might come tomorrow or even tonight. Loren's children look at others as if others have no right to come there and pick berries. But the speakers think that after looking at such ripe berries covered with shining leaves glistening like two kinds of jewels, none would complain. Anyone would be tempted to pick those berries. “The fruit mixed with water in layers of leaves/Like two kinds of jewels, a vision for thieves.” 

Thus, the speakers recollect their happy experience and also on the urgency of enjoying picking blueberries again, a rich tempting treasure to all, especially to Loren’s children who survive on wild berries. In this poem Frost describes not only the beautiful view of blueberries but also the condition of poor people like Loren who are forced to be selfish and pretentious in order to survive. The poet also contrasts Nature’s kind and liberal spirit with man’s selfish and greedy attitude who wants to rob nature using his brute force and power. Frost captures the regional idiom and conversational style of New England region set to loose, flowing verse. In this dramatic lyric the poet uses a rhyming couplet structure with irregular length of stanzas; the use of quotation marks and use of first person suggest the sense of two people chatting. This dramatic lyric also re-creates the pleasures of picking wild fruit listening to birdsong in fine weather. This poem also show's Frost's creative skills, verbal facility, his sense of keen observation and description of  minute details of Nature in a sensuous manner as well as dramatic expressions of characters also. According to Michael Dana Gioia, an American poet and critic,"  Frost’s dramatic narratives are more concise, realistic, understated, and dialectical than any available model. Their combination of minimalist narration and direct dialogue with authorial neutrality is something tangibly new in narrative."

 Frost in early 1900's supported his family on a small farm in New Hampshire growing apples and raising poultry. Frost as a naturalist is widely acknowledged. According to his biographer, Jay Parini,  an American critic and writer, "few poets in the English language have been so specific in their knowledge of plants or flowers, or find filled poetry with so much flora and fauna".  Both humanists and scientists are drawn to Frost's poetry for its blend of artistry and accuracy.

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            15th May , 2021                                   Somaseshu Gutala             

 
                                                               

 

 

.” A Note on Robert Frost (1874-1963) Part - II

 

                               

                              

                                         

Robert Frost is considered as the national poet of America who expressed the beauty of American landscape, especially of New England region and the lives of villagers along with their problems and attitudes.  According to the American poet, Randall Jarrell, “No other living poet has written so well about the actions of ordinary man.” His style comprises various elements such as lyrics and narratives with characters and background drawn from New England. He chose rural themes and realistically described the lives of humble dwellers in the countryside, their occupations, family relationships, their joys and sorrows against background of Nature. He used a lot of metaphors in his poems. Most of his themes are about Nature and humanity such as : 1) Everyday life 2) Human contact with the natural world 3) Human love 4) Isolation of man 5) Life’s struggles 6) Nature in New England 7) Rural life and occupations 8)Self-realization 9) Simultaneous validity of opposing ideas etc. His works are noted for combining characteristics of both romanticism and modernism.

 He is not a provincial poet as he revealed the universal feeling of people and their struggles and their relationship with Nature. He spent his life as a poultry farmer in New Hampshire. For ten years he worked on his farm at Derry, New Hampshire and taught at Pinkerton Academy. He observed the laborious lives of farmers and the natural surroundings of the countryside. The clash between urban and rural lifestyles and the harsh conflicts seen in the natural world are realistically portrayed in his writings.

He is a classical lyricist influenced by early Romantic poets and contemporary British poets like Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke and Robert Graves. Frost was often compared to William Wordsworth as both chose to write in the language actually used by men in the country side. But unlike Wordsworth’s mystic and pantheistic approach, Frost used realistic portrayal of Nature and the relationship between Nature and man. His approach is deceptively simple and conceals many layers of meaning. His style is epigrammatic, simple and clear. He uses colloquial diction of New England peasants but which is however purified of all that is vulgar, slangy and coarse. His imagery is drawn from the most common and familiar objects of nature.

 Frost uses symbols and metaphors with subtle layers of meaning. His poems capture the rhythms and cadences and tones of human speech. He is not egotistical like Wordsworth in poetic treatment and maintains artistic detachment but is only subjective in some of the elegies he had written. Like Wordsworth he chose incidents and situations from common life and presented them in a language actually used by the common man. Both used metrical verse and tried to reproduce the conversational and tone and rhythm of the natural speech. In Wordsworth’s view the use of meter enhances the pleasure of poetry. In frost’s view free verse is like playing tennis without a net. As far as technique is concerned Frost’s poems are remarkably flawless. Unlike Wordsworth, he is a conscious artist and revised his poems carefully. The rich texture of his verse conceals many hidden layers of meaning. 

 Richard Wilbur says that Frost did not use colloquial language of an uneducated farmer boy but rather a beautifully refines colloquial idiom set to metrical arrangement. He wrote lyrics, narrative poems, dramatic lyrics and monologues.  Skilful use of metaphors and symbols is one of the elements of his poetic style. Fact and fancy are beautifully mingled in his lyrics. His language is simple but highly suggestive. He used a conversational style with New England speech rhythms and colloquial idiom. His use of broken and loose syntax with parentheses, ellipses, unfinished sentences with abrupt openings and repetitions make him a modern poet of American countryside. Though he wrote on regional themes, he is quintessentially “a modern poet in his adherence to language as it is actually spoken, in the psychological complexity of his portraits and in the degree to which his work is infused with layers of ambiguity and irony.” His style could be described as conversational, realistic, rural(pastoral) and introspective. Ezra Pound wrote a review on Frost’s poem “A Boy’s Will” and said “, Frost has the good sense to speak naturally and to paint the thing, the thing as he sees it.” Amy Lowell reviewed “North of Boston” in the “New republic” and praised Frost’s original approach, unusual power and sincerity.

Simplicity, profundity, lucidity and subtlety are the hallmarks of his poetry. Frost’s best poetry is concerned with the drama of man Nature. Frost believes that man should live in harmony with Nature and not against Nature and natural process. The aphoristic lines in his poetry give to them a didactic quality. Louis Untermeyer says that Frost’s poetry is “a poetry which finds a response on every level which begins in delight and ends in wisdom.” Though his poems seem simple they are subtle and intricate with a rich texture and there we find layers within layers of meaning. He is a great experimentalist with various stanzaic forms. He has experimented with odes, satires, dramatic monologues and dialogues. He has employed ballad meter, Terza Rima, sonnets, couplets and blank verse.  He seems to have a special liking for the use of the quatrain form with simple rhymes like abab and abcb.  Edwin Arlington Robinson, another new England poet, was also noted for technical experimentation and used traditional verse forms like sonnet, ballad and blank verse and won three Pulitzer prizes.

 Robert Frost won Pulitzer prize four times in his life : for New Hampshire(1923), “Collected Poems(1930), “A further Range(1936) and “A witness Tree(1942. He published his first collection of poems “A Boy’s Will” in 1913. His collected poems “North of Boston” (1914) contains many of his popular poems like “Mending Wall”, “Death of the Hired man”, “Home Burial”, “Blueberries” and “Apple Picking”. His famous poem “Stopping By woods on a snowy evening” is from his collection “New Hampshire” (1923). Another famous poem “Birches” is seen in his third collection “Mountain Interval” published in 1916.

Robert Frost was regarded as America’s greatest literary figure and won much recognition and reputation during his lifetime. He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1960 for his poetic contribution. On July 22,1961 he was named the Poet laureate of Vermont. He was the Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress (1958-1959). He recited his poem “Gift Outright” at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in 1961. He served as Poet in Residence at Middlebury College, Harvard University (1939-1943); at Dartmouth College (1943-1949), at Amherst College, the University of Michigan (1949-1963), at Columbia University and at Yale University. Frost was the Founder of the Bread Loaf School and Conference of English at Middlebury College. John F. Kennedy complimented Robert frost that he “brought an unsparing instinct for reality to bear on the platitudes and pieties of society” and that “he laid out a vision for an America as much respected for its civilization as for its strength.”

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      6th May, 2021                                                  Somaseshu Gutala