WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.560 align:middle line:90% I hope this mic is on. 00:00:01.560 --> 00:00:02.410 align:middle line:90% Can you hear me? 00:00:02.410 --> 00:00:02.910 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:00:02.910 --> 00:00:05.010 align:middle line:90% All right, good. 00:00:05.010 --> 00:00:06.720 align:middle line:90% I think I'm allergic to mics. 00:00:06.720 --> 00:00:08.039 align:middle line:90% I always have been. 00:00:08.039 --> 00:00:11.730 align:middle line:90% Usually try not to use them. 00:00:11.730 --> 00:00:14.460 align:middle line:84% I want to introduce the woman who 00:00:14.460 --> 00:00:17.580 align:middle line:84% was director of the Poetry Center for 20 00:00:17.580 --> 00:00:20.400 align:middle line:90% years, my wife, Lois Shelton. 00:00:20.400 --> 00:00:23.872 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:23.872 --> 00:00:32.320 align:middle line:90% 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:35.710 align:middle line:84% Our son called this morning from Oregon. 00:00:35.710 --> 00:00:40.660 align:middle line:84% And what he called to tell me was, don't forget your glasses. 00:00:40.660 --> 00:00:42.610 align:middle line:90% He's still running our lives. 00:00:42.610 --> 00:00:45.300 align:middle line:90% 00:00:45.300 --> 00:00:49.570 align:middle line:84% I'm very much aware that this is the opening 00:00:49.570 --> 00:00:54.250 align:middle line:84% reading of the 50th anniversary of the Poetry Center, 00:00:54.250 --> 00:00:59.200 align:middle line:84% and I thought about what poem to read first. 00:00:59.200 --> 00:01:03.160 align:middle line:84% And none of mine were good enough, 00:01:03.160 --> 00:01:05.200 align:middle line:84% so I thought about some other poems. 00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:08.830 align:middle line:84% And I thought, well, since Robert Frost read 00:01:08.830 --> 00:01:12.070 align:middle line:84% that first reading, I should read a Robert Frost 00:01:12.070 --> 00:01:13.480 align:middle line:90% poem to start with. 00:01:13.480 --> 00:01:18.700 align:middle line:84% But, unfortunately, the poem of Robert Frost 00:01:18.700 --> 00:01:22.150 align:middle line:84% which is my favorite is a very heavy poem. 00:01:22.150 --> 00:01:25.840 align:middle line:90% But I'm going to read it anyway. 00:01:25.840 --> 00:01:30.550 align:middle line:84% You know, Robert Frost, the sort of myth around him 00:01:30.550 --> 00:01:34.480 align:middle line:84% has grown up that he was this kindly, sweet, old, 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:35.710 align:middle line:90% white-headed poet. 00:01:35.710 --> 00:01:39.520 align:middle line:84% And, well, he was white-headed, but that was about it. 00:01:39.520 --> 00:01:41.920 align:middle line:84% He was a curmudgeon of the first order. 00:01:41.920 --> 00:01:47.380 align:middle line:84% And I'll tell you a story that happened here 00:01:47.380 --> 00:01:50.980 align:middle line:84% when he was reading here in the Centennial Hall, which 00:01:50.980 --> 00:01:52.510 align:middle line:90% wasn't Centennial Hall then. 00:01:52.510 --> 00:01:56.050 align:middle line:90% It was the main auditorium. 00:01:56.050 --> 00:01:59.230 align:middle line:84% He was right in the middle of a long poem. 00:01:59.230 --> 00:02:02.140 align:middle line:84% I think it was "The Witch of Coos," but I'm not sure. 00:02:02.140 --> 00:02:07.990 align:middle line:84% And a young man, photographer from the Wildcat newspaper, 00:02:07.990 --> 00:02:10.900 align:middle line:84% came down that long, long aisle with hundreds of people 00:02:10.900 --> 00:02:12.290 align:middle line:90% on both sides. 00:02:12.290 --> 00:02:15.490 align:middle line:84% And he was jockeying around to get into position 00:02:15.490 --> 00:02:16.570 align:middle line:90% to take a photograph. 00:02:16.570 --> 00:02:19.870 align:middle line:84% And in those days, of course, the cameras were big and bulky 00:02:19.870 --> 00:02:23.440 align:middle line:84% and there were always flashbulbs, which blinded us. 00:02:23.440 --> 00:02:26.380 align:middle line:84% We dreaded flashbulbs because then you 00:02:26.380 --> 00:02:29.500 align:middle line:84% couldn't see the next line unless you had it memorized. 00:02:29.500 --> 00:02:33.190 align:middle line:84% But anyway, this guy got down, just ready to take the picture, 00:02:33.190 --> 00:02:36.760 align:middle line:84% kind of squatted down, and Frost leaned over the podium. 00:02:36.760 --> 00:02:40.300 align:middle line:84% And he fixed him with a gaze that would have fried leather. 00:02:40.300 --> 00:02:43.960 align:middle line:84% And he said, young man, young man, 00:02:43.960 --> 00:02:45.610 align:middle line:90% I can't have you doing that now. 00:02:45.610 --> 00:02:46.780 align:middle line:90% Get your ass out of here. 00:02:46.780 --> 00:02:50.189 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:50.189 --> 00:02:52.630 align:middle line:90% 00:02:52.630 --> 00:02:55.900 align:middle line:84% And the poor man had to turn around and go back up 00:02:55.900 --> 00:03:01.840 align:middle line:84% that long aisle, with all those people snickering and laughing. 00:03:01.840 --> 00:03:04.665 align:middle line:84% You know, Frost was a classicist, that 00:03:04.665 --> 00:03:06.740 align:middle line:90% is, a student of the classics. 00:03:06.740 --> 00:03:08.680 align:middle line:90% He knew them very well. 00:03:08.680 --> 00:03:10.570 align:middle line:84% Looking through his work, I can hardly 00:03:10.570 --> 00:03:14.890 align:middle line:84% find a decent thing he has said about the Christian god. 00:03:14.890 --> 00:03:17.710 align:middle line:84% He believed-- I think, I firmly believe, 00:03:17.710 --> 00:03:20.080 align:middle line:84% anyway-- he believed in the Greek gods. 00:03:20.080 --> 00:03:24.547 align:middle line:84% And the Greek gods, as you know, they 00:03:24.547 --> 00:03:26.380 align:middle line:84% could do just about anything they wanted to. 00:03:26.380 --> 00:03:28.060 align:middle line:90% They have temper tantrums. 00:03:28.060 --> 00:03:31.030 align:middle line:84% They punished people unnecessarily. 00:03:31.030 --> 00:03:37.340 align:middle line:84% And they were just whimsical, totally whimsical. 00:03:37.340 --> 00:03:40.430 align:middle line:84% And I think that carries over into his work, 00:03:40.430 --> 00:03:42.020 align:middle line:90% and you see it all the time. 00:03:42.020 --> 00:03:46.460 align:middle line:84% When he asks about what is causing the stones to fall off 00:03:46.460 --> 00:03:50.600 align:middle line:84% the wall, he says, I could say elves, 00:03:50.600 --> 00:03:53.060 align:middle line:90% but it's not elves exactly. 00:03:53.060 --> 00:03:55.820 align:middle line:84% It's those underground gods that have gone underground 00:03:55.820 --> 00:04:02.180 align:middle line:84% when the Christian god was legally made the God. 00:04:02.180 --> 00:04:07.160 align:middle line:84% Anyway, this poem reflects that, I think, 00:04:07.160 --> 00:04:11.180 align:middle line:84% or maybe even worse, by our standards. 00:04:11.180 --> 00:04:13.130 align:middle line:84% And there's a line toward the end 00:04:13.130 --> 00:04:14.480 align:middle line:90% that you don't want to miss. 00:04:14.480 --> 00:04:16.940 align:middle line:90% It goes by so fast. 00:04:16.940 --> 00:04:22.430 align:middle line:84% The line is, "Or someone he had to obey." 00:04:22.430 --> 00:04:25.010 align:middle line:84% The poem is from his last book, The Clearing. 00:04:25.010 --> 00:04:26.780 align:middle line:90% It's very late Frost. 00:04:26.780 --> 00:04:29.510 align:middle line:84% And it's called "The Draft Horse." 00:04:29.510 --> 00:04:32.060 align:middle line:90% Draft horse being, of course-- 00:04:32.060 --> 00:04:34.340 align:middle line:84% only the young people might not know this-- a horse 00:04:34.340 --> 00:04:38.850 align:middle line:90% that pulls a buggy or a wagon. 00:04:38.850 --> 00:04:43.800 align:middle line:84% "With a lantern that wouldn't burn, in too frail a buggy, 00:04:43.800 --> 00:04:48.810 align:middle line:84% we drove behind too heavy a horse 00:04:48.810 --> 00:04:53.710 align:middle line:84% through a pitch-dark, limitless grove. 00:04:53.710 --> 00:04:57.790 align:middle line:84% And a man came out of the trees and took our horse by the head 00:04:57.790 --> 00:05:04.350 align:middle line:84% and, reaching back to his ribs, deliberately stabbed him dead. 00:05:04.350 --> 00:05:08.690 align:middle line:84% The ponderous beast went down with a crack of a broken shaft, 00:05:08.690 --> 00:05:11.030 align:middle line:84% and the night drew through the trees 00:05:11.030 --> 00:05:15.340 align:middle line:90% in one long invidious draft. 00:05:15.340 --> 00:05:19.750 align:middle line:84% The most unquestioning pair that ever accepted fate, 00:05:19.750 --> 00:05:23.470 align:middle line:84% and the least disposed to ascribe any more 00:05:23.470 --> 00:05:27.190 align:middle line:84% than we had to to hate, we assumed 00:05:27.190 --> 00:05:31.990 align:middle line:84% that the man himself, or someone he had to obey, 00:05:31.990 --> 00:05:36.780 align:middle line:84% wanted us to get down and walk the rest of the way."