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"Mending Wall" by Robert Frost (read by Tom O'Bedlam)
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- čas přidán 14. 11. 2008
- The poet's thoughts while working with his neighbour to mend the dry stone wall between their land. It's unlikely that Frost intended any deeper meaning, but you can read a social message into it if you like.
Terse Verse:
Never leave your walls unmended,
for the neighbours get offended.
Build em six feet high and stout,
its best to keep the bastards out.
...Steph#2 (I only know the nick)
This poem reminds me of when I was 16. An elderly man in my neighborhood employed me to repair the joints in his fieldstone wall. On one end they are sloppily done. Along its span they become better. For four summers after that I would work on his property with mending the wall always on the to-do list. That's when I learned patience and the importance of aloe vera on cracked hands. That's when I learned to mix mortar and use a trowel. That's when I learned how to use a wood chipper and a scythe. He taught me species of weeds and how to prune seed pods from tulips so that they'd bloom in the following spring. That old man was a sage who grew none in his garden. That was an education that I was paid hourly to receive. God, I miss those days.
Frost said, "When I wrote that poem only God and I knew the meaning -- Now only god knows!"
Yes, we maintain social barriers even when they're not needed. We keep people at a distance, like the saying "Familiarity breeds contempt".
Here's a saying of my own. "Relationships depend on the exchange of small tokens, most of them counterfeit".
Lawrence is difficult, but I'll record "Piano" and then decide if it's worth posting
I miss being very young and reading the thoughts of dusty old men, like the sages of ages. When I was 13 I was reading Longfellow, Poe, Frost, e.e. cummings, etc. I can to this day recite most of them.
I believe that Frost clearly refers to a deeper meaning. The entire context created by this poem, its observations, the darkness in which his neighbour walks, which is not only that of the pines. Especially, the way in which he questions and constantly wonders at this ritual opens an enormous space for uncovering a deeper meaning. He removes all doubt in the final lines, becoming incredibly blatant for a poet, which I find quiet unusual, but of course fascinating. But rather than planting my own notion, I think the process of interpretation is well left to the readers. Thank you for sharing this.
My favourite poem.Of course it has deeper meaning.Frost is a master of turning nature and the ordinary into ideas with his metaphors.I work in mental health.Some fences do indeed make good neighbours.Others?What are we walling in or walling out?.The frozen ground swell?Sounds like a touch of Frost!
It is Frost's social explorations that really give some of his poems some real dimension and power in the face of his "simplicity" (which I love).
Aside from any big metaphorical meaning, I just enjoy the poem's nostalgic effect of going back 60 years to my rural youth and climbing over broken down stone walls in abandoned cow pastures. It always made me wonder, who lived here and where did they go?
Thank you for an excellent video upload and thanks to mary who kindly shared. ♥
I want to continue:
In the state of Vermont (and in many other states) there is a law that states two owners of adjoining property both are responsible for the maintence of any fence or wall that marks their boundary. If either is not willing to contribute to its maintanance then the other can legally charge the unwilling neighbor for the labor and material that is reqquired to maintan it.
@pingguo2 Yes I read everything in this SpokenVerse channel. I hope you'll listen to a few more.
Frost definitely intended meaning for this poem! My class just had a debate on this poem.
I'd be sad if Frost didn't intend any deeper meaning. I wrote my entire senior thesis on this poem lol.
so true ..............n robert frost dealt with reality ..........great
Good fences make good neighbours felt myself hearing this saying again...Maybe meant nothing at the time?.Political now.Who doesnt want to smell the roses? Dont blame them.Who are we walling in and walling out?
Many of Frost's poems focus on the individual in society. I always likened "Mending Wall" to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in the distancing and masking of ones true identity that must take place in order to relate to others. Both poems bring this idea from the unconscious to the conscious mind of the narrator. My favorite social aspect Frost plays with is suicide and the individual removing himself from society in "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
I like this poem as taken literally.
You definitely skipped "There where it is we do not need a wall".
I memorized this poem many years ago and have recited it a hundred times.
That is a very important line in the poem -- probably the most important line in the poem.
Saying "He is all pine and I am apple orchard" does not logically follow without that line ... and moreover the whole idea behind the literal interpretation of this poem is the conflicting view as to whether the wall is needed.
MY FAV POEM ......YET PREFER 'STOPPING BY WOODS........'
@pingguo2 Interesting. It's not in the Bartleby version that I copied - but it is in some versions. Try googling the previous line "One on a side. It comes to little more"
Enjoyed.
If this were taken at face value one could suspect (or even believe) that the narrator who denied the need for the wall is naive (or more likely pretending to be). The reason for a wall or fence that marks a boundary is not to prevent animals one side from encroaching on the neighbors property -- it is to clearly mark the boundary as stated in a deed. This is the reason that "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors". A stone wall can easily "creep" giving one side less property.
A similar controversy can arise over any poem or story, but more often with a peom.
Robert Frost himself stated that a poem has a "life of its own" it is not so much invented as is discovered and its beauty and meaning is "in the eyes of the beholder". So one can find a meaning in a poem that was NOT the intention of the poet -- and if so it is valid. Robert Frost was asked the meaning of a poem he wrote. For Frost's answer see the continuation -- I was 2 charactors short.
that's a bold statement.lots of people believe in devision.They do it them selves.Gated communities.I don't like it myself.I like to get to know people from all walks of life.I didn't think im from adams rib.Gue3ss what? hes not from mine.Can everyone be civil together?This was supposed to be about my favourite poem.Leaving out nouns makes u look crazy not foreiegn..sorry.
this recital of the poem is missing the 23rd line:
"There where it is we do not need the wall", should be read after, "One on a side. It comes to little more"
+Michele Peregrin This version comes from Bartleby's Modern American Poetry - a printed reliable source. It's true that the extra line is in some versions. www.bartleby.com/104/64.html
didn't know there are versions of poems. I was following along for a comp lit class, and that line was missing...
He is all pine and i am apple orchard.Best poem i think. been away.Love this poem.Seems like it is only me who does.Flipinik.
rosie cider I love this poem. Used this poem in an arquement about paying for gravel repairs in this exact area. Go look my Stone Wall I built on CZcams. Sarah Burke Tribute Wall 2015. It did not work and they think I'm completely nuts now. ;) ahahhahaha
Thanks, that's interesting. What was the message?
your voice is lush xx
while this poem does make sense without the missing line, i think that it makes even better sense with it.the version on the poetry foundation website does include it.
@Tubetopfan1 Or, perhaps. we see things the way we are rather than the way they are.
i love your reading of this poem and have shared it. i do have one question - why did you not pause at the comma after "it's not elves exactly"? the poem does read (almost mean) differently this way. it seems to me that you did this deliberately and i am curious.
Tom u let anyone comment on here.As its good is. great.
thanks for posting
While I thank the uploader for this poem, I respectfully disagree with the position that this poem had no deeper meaning or social undertones. The whole poem is allegorical and addresses human relationships so much more than merely providing a descripton of stones sitting upon a property line. Walls (boundaries) are necessary but can also prevent greater understanding between people. Allegorically, Frost seems to be sitting on the fence regarding the necessity of walls.