[Alan Sullivan]

My thanks to Alex Pepple for inviting me to launch a new satellite into the Eratosphere. In this forum I will post poems of recognized quality and consider what attributes distinguish these poems from others. By choosing works mostly from what used to be called the "canon," I hope to avoid controversy about whether a particular piece merits discussion. Over time, perhaps, and with feedback from visitors, the discussion may range more widely, including contemporary poetry or translations. Members may also wish to post works by their own favorite authors for critical consideration by the group.
I would like this forum to host a different sort of conversation from that typically found in workshops, where concern for the feelings of our brethren sometimes inhibits honest appraisal. We will not be dealing in work by beginners here. Instead, I hope we can consider together what moved our predecessors and how they expressed their thoughts. In the process, perhaps we will all gain a greater respect for excellence and a deeper determination to achieve it. We may also find ourselves debating what constitutes excellence. I have no idea what will ensue, so I will simply post a poem and see who responds.

Design

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth---
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth---
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?---
If design govern in a thing so small.

I have chosen a sonnet for this initial posting because the form seems extremely, perhaps excessively popular among contemporary Formalists. It's understandable that we would all be challenged and fascinated by this poem, which achieves so much within such ferocious constraints. I hope our conversation will touch on Frost's implicit views of nature and religion, as well as the technical merits of his poem.

Alan

[Michael Juster]

Well, Alan, no better way to kick off a new venture than to have some jerk wander in and make a few ignorant comments. I don't think this is one of Frost's stronger poems--"broth" in line 6 screams to be "brew" and feels like a force for the rhyme; I will give him the benefit of the doubt on "froth" because I don't know what a "heal-all" looks like. More significantly, line 13, the pivot of the poem, feels clumsy to me even allowing for a century's worth of changes in diction.

[RCL]

What a great idea! This poem is especially important to me since I use it often to test the explicating skills of my freshmen intro to lit students. Michael, it's only important to know that the heal-all is USUALLY blue, not white. I don't want to intrude, but are either of you aware of his earliest version of this? Called "In White," it was published, maybe just written, some 30 or so years before this one. The contrast helps a newbie sonneteer like me have hope. I don't have a copy handy but will post it down the line.

[Jerry H Jenkins]

Alan,

This is a fine project, and I thank you for presiding over its launch. The prospect of subjecting masters' poems to the expectations of today's formalism is interesting to contemplate, and the prospect of sharpening our analytical abilities without fear of offending the author is equally attractive.

I didn't recognize this poem as having been written by Frost - I'd have attributed it to one of the 19th century English naturalists, especially with its questioning tone in the close. The rhetorical device is seldom used these days, and when it is, it seems to make the poem that uses it seem old-fashioned.

The question this poem asks reminds me of the question posed by Wilder in his "The Bridge at San Luis Rey" - the one in which five people are brought together, seemingly at random, to plummet to their deaths into river gorge when the rope bridge carrying them breaks. The final line in this poem seems to summarize that question well, and calls into issue what constitutes 'smallness'. This poem is thus, to me, one of dimension and import, and what is implied by action within a limited sphere.

But none of this is necessarily represented in the octave. The sestet seems, as Michael mentions, to be grafted on in an abrupt joining. It's almost as if Frost had adopted the way of buttonholing the reader and insisting "let me tell you about my grandchildren.".

I see that the octave uses four direct similes (like cloth, like broth, like froth, like kite). In today's critical practice, he'd probably be hammered strongly for doing that, even though it works. I also notice the subjunctive mood in line 14 - a construct that would probably puzzle many contemporary readers, even if it performs its work with great efficiency.

And lest we forget, I see that the poem deviates from pure IP in several places that would probably make the simple metrical police of today's online critical world happy - it would give them something to do.

Notwithstanding the vagaries of style, this poem exhibits a thematic maturity that moves away from the rhetoric and predictability of the moralistic poems of his predecessors, and displays greater depth and sophistication than, say, E. A. Robinson, whose work sometimes seems to be more device than substance.

Thanks very much for inaugurating this attractive forum.

Jerry

[Carol Taylor]

Alan, this is a great idea for a discussion forum and I hope to learn much here.

Jerry's crit of Frost's poem is excellent. I know Frost considered his words with great care, so the fact that he wrote it would lend this poem more weight than it seems to merit on the surface. But if it had been written by one of us, I'd have a couple of comments to add to Jerry's.

Satin is anything but rigid. And line 13,
What but design of darkness to appall?--- wouldn't get past the first round of critique.

Still, you can tell a poet has been here. Wonder how long it took him to decide between morning right and morning rite.

Carol

[Alan Sullivan]

I must confess to having felt some doubt whether this new forum would interest anyone. How pleasing to check the site this morning and find such a variety of replies! I scarcely know where to begin. I'll start with Mike, I suppose, since he was the first off the mark!

Yes, the rhymes strain a bit, but surely you cannot wish for the cliche, "witches' brew." Frost has found an arresting variation. And he has not violated sense to reach for rhyme. When he invokes witches, or likens the albino flower to a froth (bubbling on the broth, no doubt), he moves the poem logically toward its conclusion. He wants to disturb the reader; the hint of strain works to further his purpose. Yet I cannot help but wonder whether he was also testing the very edge of his considerable mastery. Had he chosen some other theme, and strained so, we might deem the poem a failure.

I hope our next visitor, RCL, will post the earlier draft he speaks of. I was not aware of it.

Jerry Jenkins choses well when invokes Wilder, whose work was certainly influential during Frost's lifetime, though I suspect he is not much heeded now. I'm not in the academic field myself, but I hear alarming stories...

The similes work, yes, in their context. And so, I think, does the meter, with the possible exception of line 6, which reminds me of the nagging tetrameter, "And that has made all the difference." In "The Road Not Taken," the metrically puzzling line underscores the thorniness of the less traveled way. Here, though, I'm not so sure I can endorse "Like the ingredients of a witches' broth." I suspect Tim Murphy (aka "the meter maid") will wish to comment, but the line just doesn't work for me.

I shall return to the subject of E.A. Robinson later on.

Alan Sullivan

[This message has been edited by Alan Sullivan (edited 08-26-2000).]

[sam]

What but design of darkness to appall?---
If design govern in a thing so small.

Indeed.
I'd say from this that Bob was a twisted old fart.
It is the poet, not some act of God or nature,
who brought those three together. By design.
Don't get me wrong. I like and admire Frost's poetry
but I don't trust him much. The 'design of darkness'
that stamps itself on this poem and others of his
is his own signature, not someone else's.

So ... if design govern in a thing so small
then I think that the design of this poem
and its execution should be fair game here,
metrical deviants and all.

A poem can work for me in three ways: musically, emotionally, or intellectually.
A great poem must work on at least two of those levels, preferrably all three.
I find this poem rather bland sonically. The word "white"
is repeated five times. And the "-ite" rhyme sound is used seven times
even though this runs it against the form. "-oth" and "-all" are also pretty dull.
There are no truly memorable lines here, other than perhaps the last.
The poem has some nice musical moments: the first line and the "wayside blue" line,
but "the white moth thither"?
The metrical anomalies don't bother me too much,
but they certainly add nothing to the poem, just more noise, as Josh would have it.

Emotionally, the image of the spider and moth on the white flower
didn't register. It wasn't until the "buttonholing" of the sestet
that the image began to expand and take on import.
Intellectually, the poem finds some traction in those lines
and their taunting echo of Blake's "Tyger".
But Frost makes for slippery footing.
In the end, I see only an old man's grin on the face
of that "dimpled spider, fat and white".

sam

[This message has been edited by sam (edited 08-22-2000).]

[Joel Lamore]

I've wanted a forum like this for a while. Good work all.

I've limited time to comment right now (the semester has begun!) but I wanted to note two things. First, the issue of Frost's departure from strict iambic feet. He substitutes here with true mastery. I have certainly learned much from this poem and others of Frost's on this point. Note that deviations from iambs actually help the meaning, underline phrases, cause pauses and phrasings that aid the close reader (and the casual one who only "feels" the poem).

Second, it might be fun at times to post a poem in this forum without a name attached (a lot of great poets have great poems which are little known but which are excellent, and also some that are not so good--which would be opportunity for good criticism). Having the great poet's name attached can skew our reactions.

Again, a great addition to Eratosphere.

[RCL]

This is an early draft of "Design," from 24 years before he published it. "In White" was shared with a correspondent in 1912:

In White

A dented spider like a snow drop white
On a white Heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of lifeless satin cloth--
Saw ever curious eye so strange a sight?--
Portent in little, assorted death and blight
Like ingredients of a witches' broth?--
The beady spider, the flower like a froth,
And the moth carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The blue prunella every child's delight.
What brought that kindred spider to that height?
(Make we no thesis of the miller's plight.)
What but design of darkness and of night?
Design, design! Do I use the word aright?

[sam]

Simply dreadful.

sam