Frosty reception
I've been out exploring the googlesphere to find the text of the 88-year-old Robert Frost poem, "War Thoughts at Home," recently discovered by grad student Robert Stilling and published in the new edition of Virginia Quarterly Review. Given that one can find online the full text of thousands of books written before and after 1918, find the full text of Rep. Mark Foley's IM chats and emails, find endless accounts of the informal genetic experiments of celebrities, full-length pre-release Hollywood movies, 911 call audio, and every bad poem written in the last decade somewhere on the internet, I assumed this would be an easy search. Nada—locked up tighter than the next Harry Potter. Four lines here, four lines there, no more.
There's something out of whack in our notion of intellectual property. Robert Frost is, I am sorry to report, long dead. But through the endless legal extension of copyright beyond the lives of the artists whose right to benefit from their own work it was intended to protect, we are instead cutting ourselves off from the richness of our own cultural legacy. The estates and publishers of long-dead artists cling to their debatable rights more fiercely as time goes by. The text of the poem appeared briefly on one website, and was forcibly removed within hours. Ironically, the only new intellectual property associated with the discovery, Robert Stilling's account of the find, is posted on the VQR website for all the world to read for free. I was happy to read it; it's an interesting story. But I will pay VQR's $25 subscription price in order to read the poem online, only if they can promise to bring back Robert Frost to collect his cut. It isn't as if I can't walk over to the Owen D. Young Library and read the current issue for free. Frost himself probably took a similar walk around the St. Lawrence campus when courting his bride-to-be.
posted by Dale Hobson @ 1:20 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
The first is what I've been able to piece together from various reports. The second I found on MySpace of all places.
I wrote about it all at http://bicycle-diaries.blogspot.com/2006/10/war-thoughts-at-home.html
War Thoughts at Home
Robert Frost
[35 lines, 7 stanzas, each 5 lines]
1.
The flurry of bird war [?]
….[?]
….[?]
….[?]
….[?]
2.
It is late in an afternoon
More grey with snow to fall
Than white with fallen snow
When it is blue jay and crow
Or no bird at all.
3. [or 1?]
On the backside of the house
Where it wears no paint to the weather
And so shows most its age,
Suddenly blue jays rage
And flash in blue feather.
4.
….[?]
….[?]
….[?]
….[?]
….[?]
5.
And one says to the rest
“We must just watch our chance
And escape one by one-
Though the fight is no more done
Than the war is in France.”
6.
Than the war is in France!
She thinks of a winter camp
Where soldiers for France are made.
She draws down the window shade
And it glows with an early lamp.
7.
…..[?]
The uneven sheds stretch back
Shed behind shed in train
Like cars that have long lain
Dead on a side track.
War Thoughts at Home
Robert Frost
[http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=47655941&blogID=174412193&MyToken=56b6a49d-4349-4b76-a94a-f7791caeb5f9]
1.
On the back side of the house
Where it wears no paint to the weather
And so shows most its age,
Suddenly blue jays rage
And flash in blue feather.
2.
It is late in an afternoon
More grey with snow to fall
Than white with fallen snow
When it is blue jay and crow
Or no bird at all.
3.
So someone heeds from within
This flurry of bird war,
And rising from her chair
A little bent over with care
Not to scatter on the floor
4.
The sewing in her lap
Comes to the window to see.
At sight of her dim face
The birds all cease for a space
And cling close in a tree.
5.
And one says to the rest
"We must just watch our chance
And escape one by one—
Though the fight is no more done
Than the war is in France."
6.
Than the war is in France!
She thinks of a winter camp
Where soldiers for France are made.
She draws down the window shade
And it glows with an early lamp.
7.
On that old side of the house
The uneven sheds stretch back
Shed behind shed in train
Like cars that long have lain
Dead on a side track.
January 1918
I, too, was unsuccessful in searching for the full text of the poem - then a simple Google check today (10/12/06) turned up a link to a "MySpace" site which displays the (somewhat surprisingly) short work. The owner of that site deserves the credit.
http://www.solearabiantree.net/reedinglessons/
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