When we travel, I try to find something to read that gives me a flavor or feeling of the place to which we are going or something about the place. In the case of Key West, I learned that at least three big time authors have lived there for varying periods of time, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams and Robert Frost. I thought I would try to read something from each of these authors before we go. I would use our local library as I couldn't find free books to my liking for my Kindle. I guess these authors are not quite old enough for the free books list.
I read Ernest Hemingway's "To Have and Have Not" first. That was a fairly quick read. Got that one done in two days. I really did not like that book. When I recorded my reading on Shelfari and Goodreads, I only gave it one star out of 5. I'm sure the verbage is correct for the setting and time, but it was harsh to my ear and heart.
I tried to get something by Tennessee Williams but my library doesn't have the book I was wanting. In truth, Claude and saw "The Glass Menagerie at the Purple Rose Theater when Jacob, our son, was an apprentice there. That is a classic Tennessee Williams play so I don't feel too cheated not reading his play in book form.
So I jumped to Robert Frost. Our library had a book of his poetry. It is actually a combination of several books of his poetry. I started it in earnest today as Claude drove us to Paris for church.
I enjoy reading poetry. I believe a good poet must have a great vocabulary. That means they will use words I'm not familiar with and that will increase my vocabulary.
For example, Frost uses the word 'orchises' in a poem about flowers, 'a thousand orchises'. Got to be orchids.
In another poem titled "Waiting' he uses the word antiphony. Antiphony means the opposition of sounds, any response or echo. The word is used after he writes of the laborer's voices dying down.
One poem is titled "The Demiurge's Laugh". What in the world is that? The poem uses the word 'Demon' spelled with a capital 'D' throughout. Checking my worn out dictionary, I find one of the definitions if from the Gnostic philosophy. I've heard of that. The definition states: a god sub-ordinante to the supreme god, sometimes considered the originator of evil, or identified with the Jehovah of the Bible. New wrinkles forming in my aging brain.
I already came across one poem I want to include in this Blog entry. The poem is title "The Tuft of Flowers" and is from "A Boys Will - 1913". Enjoy!!
I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.
The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the leveled scene.
I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.
But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been--alone.
"As all must be," I said within my heart,
"Whether they work together or apart."
But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,
Seeking with memories grown dim o'er night
Some resting flower of yesterday's delight.
And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flowers lay withering on the ground.
An then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.
I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;
But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of lowers beside a brook,
A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.
The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,
Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him,
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.
The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,
That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,
And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more along;
But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;
And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.
"Men work together," I told him from the heart,
"Whether they work together or apart."
As we drove to Paris along Scenic Highway 460 which had several sections lined with stone fences that are a particular treasure in Kentucky, I came across the poem titled "Mending Wall". Now that is poetry in living while reading. This poem is about a man who has a rock wall that marks the property line between him and his neighbor. There are places the rocks have fallen and the wall in broken open. The poet says, "One a day we meet to walk the line." Then the poem describes the two men, one on each (his) side of the wall, walking together and picking up rocks and putting them back in place from their respective sides of the wall, repairing the wall as they go. The man narrating this poem says that his neighbor says, "Good fences make good neighbors." I liked this poem because it touches on something that is a part of where I live and speaks of man's relationship with others. Good poem.
I've only read 58 pages of the 521 pages of poetry in this book. In thumbing through the poems I found one of my favorites, "The Road Not Taken". It speaks of a man walking in a wood and coming to a fork in the road. Which way should he go? The end of the poem says:
Two road diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Yep, I like that. Choices. Agency. Good stuff.
I'm thinking this book will get 5 stars after I am finished.
I know in reading these books I'm not really learning about Key West itself. But I will look at Key West and see how it might have inspired these literary classics. I will have stretched myself in a direction I might not have done by reading literature I wouldn't have looked to without the background of this trip. I'm happy I have chosen this road...it will make all the difference.
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