On Finding a New Poem to Love

Hello,
I've always loved the American poet Robert Frost, based almost entirely on his poem 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening'. There's something about that poem that calls to me, the rhyming scheme is there, but even though the poem's loaded with rhyming, it doesn't intrude.

I love the fact that the rhymes are never the most obvious word, the word seems to have been carefully chosen as just the correct word for what Frost wanted to say, and he didn't ever go for cliche.

I was raised on the rhymes of Banjo Paterson, another clever rhyming poet, and I wonder now, was it merely coincidence that Frost died at a time I was not quite born yet, but was growing into a baby to be born a couple of months after Frost's death...

This fact, coupled with Banjo's ballads often as an after dinner snack, made me alert to what a fine rhyme can and should be, and hostile to poor and obvious rhyming that brings no sense of rhythm. Rhythm surely must be there with the rhyme, or the poetry is lost and becomes a weaker squawking that has no music to it.

My poetry now follows many forms, sometimes I rhyme, sometimes not, but I try to always have a sense of rhythm in my verse. Anyway, these are a few thoughts on Robert Frost and poetry and rhyming. 


I've just realised this entire blog post doesn't talk of the thing that prompted it in the first place. The new poem I found this morning was a poem of Robert Frost's 'A Considerable Speck'. I found this somewhere on the internet, can't remember how, now, but it struck me as a gorgeous whimsical little thing, that should be considered further, and shared with those who could come to love it, as I am coming to love it.


Feel free to add your thoughts to the discussion, I will reply...