Who thinks Robert Frost is an old stodgy iambic pen­tame­ter irrel­e­vant poet..? Well I will argue that Robert Frost began the mod­ern Occu­py Move­ment over 70 years ago…

“Make the whole Stock Exchange your own

If need be.… Occu­py a throne”

- Robert Frost from his poem Provider Provider

He is pret­ty fun­ny in this record­ing… know­ing that he was pals with Ezra Pound and oth­er poets that were break­ing the chains of tra­di­tion­al poet­ic struc­ture said that he’d ​“no soon­er write free verse than play ten­nis with­out a net”.. haha he’s pret­ty wit­ty even in his 80’s.

Robert Frost was born in San Fran­cis­co in 1874 and con­tin­ued liv­ing a rel­a­tive­ly urban lifestyle in Mass­a­chu­setts until 1900. In that year Frost’s grand­fa­ther bought him a small farm in New Hamp­shire where he began a failed farm­ing endeav­or, but more impor­tant­ly began to write poet­ry from his rur­al obser­va­tions. He sold the farm in 1912 and moved to Eng­land, where he believed he had his best chance to sell his poetry.

Frost’s plan worked, as he found a Pub­lish­er to print his first book of poet­ry A Boy’s Will at the age of 38. But the more sig­nif­i­cant event hap­pened when he met and friend­ed two poets, Ezra Pound and Edward Thomas. It was their sup­port and encour­age­ment that proved the miss­ing ele­ment to move his poet­ry to respectabil­i­ty in the Pub­lish­ing world. In par­tic­u­lar, Edward Thomas, a poet­ry crit­ic and poet him­self would go on walks with Frost in the Eng­lish coun­try­side. It was on one of these walks that Frost was inspired to write maybe his most famous poem The Road Not Tak­en. Sad­ly Edward Thomas was killed in World War I while on a mis­sion in France.

When Robert Frost returned back home to Amer­i­ca, Pub­lish­ers were now ready to work with Frost, includ­ing work they had turned down pri­or to his move to England.

4 Pulitzer Prize’s lat­er, Robert Frost is back In Berke­ley Cal­i­for­nia to give a poet­ry read­ing that is broad­cast on Paci­fi­ca Sta­tion KPFA on June 11, 1956. This is an incred­i­ble read­ing as Frost takes the time to tell wit­ty anec­dotes about his life and his poems.

Poems read include

- One Step Back­ward Taken

- A Peck of Gold

- Once by the Pacific

- The Runaway

- Stop­ping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

- The Death of the Hired Man (rare reading)

- A Silken Tent

- Why Wait For Sci­ence? (he explains he was friends with Wilbur Wright)

- Ethe­ri­al­iz­ing

- Pro­vide Provide

- Depart­men­tal

- The Road Not Taken

- A Con­sid­er­able Speck