Archive > 2008 > Jan · Feb · Mar · Apr · May · Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep · Oct · Nov · Dec

December 2008 · Readings · Previous · Next   PDF

For the prevention of speed

By Robert Frost

By Robert Frost, adapted from “The Claims of Poetry,” a lecture delivered May 9, 1944, at Dartmouth College, published in Fulcrum: 6. The recording of the lecture is one of several by Frost in the Dartmouth library recently transcribed by James Sitar, archive editor of the Poetry Foundation.

I wonder how many people do think that poetry seems, and the making of poetry seems, a little trivial or flippant even, in a time like this. I doubt many of you do. One has to be careful in my position— connected as much as I am or as little as I am with poetry—not to claim too much for it. One is always in danger of claiming too much for his own work, or his own job, or his own occupation, or his own calling, because it is his own. I suppose a good many people off-hand would expect of me to claim for poetry that “anyway it’s the place of ideals, and the poets are the keepers of ideals.” And I’d be willing to leave that to somebody else: to the ladies or the children—let them be the keepers of ideals—the young hopefuls or somebody like that.

29

SEE ALSO: American poetry; Utopias

Previous · Next