Analysis of "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost - Close Reading by Dana Gioia
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- čas přidán 15. 02. 2021
- Robert Frost's short poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" is so moving and memorable that the reader is shocked at how short it is. How does the poem acquire such power in so few lines? And what does Robert Frost's poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" mean? Poet Dana Gioia gives a brief talk on the poem, reading, analyzing, and discussing the short masterpiece.
This video is an analysis of "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost. In it I briefly explore the biography of poet Robert Frost and look at how the life of Robert Frost informed the poem. For more videos on poetry you can subscribe to my CZcams channel: / @danagioia6943
"Nothing Gold Can Stay"
by Robert Frost
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
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I remember our 8th grade English teacher required the entire class to memorize this poem at the beginning of the year. We didn't understand why at the time, but he promised one day we'd understood. He was right.
With the passing years, the poem takes on a very specific meaning to me. This meaning has, in fact, been there since the beginning. The poem has not changed. I have.
As I age however, it acquires a more nostalgic note, and tells me about the loss of youth, innocence, and my desire for holding on to the past.
I realize how much I have changed from those early days of youth. How much more vibrant, bright, colorful and full of energy I was. My hue has changed. I am no longer "gold" but old.
How sad am I? I have failed to adapt. I have failed to let go of so many things we should let go.
Some of my friends are gone. Some of my lovers are gone. Some have died and some have just disappeared. Status unknown. They were the flowers of adjacent branches whose fragrance perfumed my life. I find less of me every day.
Remarkably comprehensive analysis of an inexhaustible brief poem. Along with the shifting temporal implications Mr. Gioia so ably points out, I can't help reading the first iteration of "leaf" in reference to gold leaf, so brightly impressive on first application, so easily worn away to a lesser metal beneath: the scarcely-opened spring leaf, so brightly tinctured, "subsides" to a far more quotidian green. Such, too, is the gilded veneer with which a rapturous dawn paints what will "go down" to a merely wonderful day.
And a good decision also to examine the biographical undercurrents. Could the poem also reflect Frost's own concern that his golden poetical powers might soon be on the wane?
You're a wonderful poet AND teacher. Thank you. "Stay gold, Pony Boy."
Nothing "old" [minus the "g"] can stay put; age moves, swooshes. O! Great poem! ~Linette Marie Allen
Thank you for helping us to slow down and be enveloped in this magnificently brief work.
It's about life and how it always finds away to move on
I learned this poem from the outsiders
Thanks for all that you do, Dana. That said, I hope in the near future you will produce some new videos about poetry. Perhaps one about neglected poets. Edna St. Vincent Millay, Josephine Miles, Louise Bogan, Ann Stanford come to mind.Too often someone who is an excellent poet, but not widely read, falls between the cracks in the world's smooth surface.
Edward Thomas' lovely poem, "Adlestrop," is a poem I return to again and again. We can all cite favorite poems by lesser known poets or poems by poets who are anthologized but are remembered for one or two especially remarkable poems. I can however think of only a few people I know who if I asked them to read a poem, any poem, they would respond with enthusiasm. That said, if I asked almost anyone who is not a poet or hasn't an interest in poetry, "they" would likely respond as if I had asked them to "eat bean sprouts," as you have suggested in another of your discussions about poetry. I see little reference to the work of such poets as Jean Follian, Bert Meyers, Ann Stanford, Josephone Miles, Louise Bogan, Edna St. Vincent Millay (almost forgotten these days), and never anything about poet Agnes Lee (see her poems "The Ilex Tree," "The Sweeper," "Mrs. Malooly," and "Old Lizette On Sleep"). The poems are remarkable though there is little else she wrote that is as fine. She died in 1939, the same year W.B. Yeats died. The best of her poetry can be read online at the Poetry Foundation site.
I should also mention Benjamin Saltman's contribution to poetry. In 1992, W. S. Merwin wrote, "Benjamin Saltman is a fine poet, a genuine one, which is saying a great deal, because I think that at anytime there is a lot of showy performance and not so much of always rather surprising welling up of the source itself. Lovely plainness, apparent plainness, with that depth beyond it." Poet Reed Whittemore was also fond of Saltman's poetry.
I have taken your advice and stopped worrying so much about Saltman's readership or lack of it. That said, my interest in promoting his work was never something I regarded as "tiresome."
I have written and remarked that some of us write merely for the pleasure of writing and have no delusions about the kind of readership that some others enjoy, including yourself. I think it was my friend, William Stafford, who wrote: "Writing is a private act, publishing a public act." I'm not suggesting others look at writing as I do. I have, as you know, recruited actors such as Sally Day, Michael Justice, and others to record my poems. I have found the public is more likely to listen to recordings rather than read a book of poems. You have recorded some of your poems. I like your discussion titled "Poetry as Enchantment," during which you examine why poetry is not as popular was it was during the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Be well, Dana.
Wonderful! Thank you, Mr. Gioia.
Thanks a lot for your explanation.
A very quality analysis Mr. Gioia. Thank you for taking the time to put this video together to share with all of us.
Thank you for this clear, comprehensive analysis. How unlikely was it that Frost would meet Thomas, and, encourage him to find his voice as a poet of the English countryside? Such a matter of regret that despite many discussions and arguments, Frost failed to persuade his friend to join him in the US, away from the fatal idiocy of the war in France. Gold, indeed.
What a great analysis. Thank you.
Thank you, one of my favorites. ❤️
Wow, impressive summary..very nice.
Looks to me like a Gruk a danish form given its name by Piet Hein a Danish poet.
I love this poem, Dana. I also like the lesser known "A Peck of Gold." I wish however readers here at CZcams would not misquote the poem. The second line of the second stanza should read, "Appeared like "gold" in the sunset sky," not "God." Perhaps some need to read Frost's "Complete Poems" or refer to the Library of America publication of Frost's "Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays," compiled by Richard Poirier and Mark Richardson. The word God does not appear in the poem. It wouldn't make a bit of sense if it had. I was raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools. I've not a thing opposed to the belief in God or any god. I do however become rankled when a poem is misquoted and "A Peck of Gold" is often misquoted. Nick Campbell, Atascadero, CA.
Very incisive
Almost a Tanka