Poetry with Robert Frost

For this new season of The Poe Show podcast, I am so glad to introduce a new guest narrator to this episode who will narrate some of their own poems. He is one of the most famous American poets of all time, having written 256 poems in his lifetime. Today we are privileged to hear from Robert Frost's own voice the two poems The Road Not Taken and Woods On A Snowy Evening. Yes, this is a mock interview I've crafted with Robert Frost, but if you'd like to see the actual interviews I took these clips from then click the links in the description.

Robert Frost interviews:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qwCEnkb2_E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-YqnIgcICw&t=191s

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https://www.thepoeshow.com/

Episode music and narration by Tynan Portillo.

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Intro music by Emmett Cooke on PremiumBeat.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:52 Poetry
• 2:49 Interview
• 5:08 Aftertalk

Transcript

Today’s episode, a couple simple yet beautiful poems by Robert Frost. And although Mr. Frost has been dead since 1963, I have him here as a special guest on the podcast. Mr. Frost, would you mind reading our first poem, Woods On A Snowy Evening, for us here on The Poe Show?

Want to hear me say that?

Very much so. Take it away.

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

Amazing. Thank you very much for that.

Now, I’d love for you to share with our audience one of your most widely known poems, The Road Not Taken.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Thank you very much, Mr. Frost. Now, Mr. Frost, if I may ask, what is poetry to you?

I’ve said a many good things about that. One thing I said, poetry is that which evaporates from both pros and verse when translated.

Interesting. That’s a bit of a confusing answer.

I haven’t meant to be.

Oh, it’s quite alright. Now if you would answer another question for me and the listeners. How do you go about writing poetry?

Well that’s another definition of, I suppose you’d say, poetry might - might be a fresh use of the mother tongue. So that it sounds almost like slang. And not another language that you picked up later but your mother tongue. Language and thought both clean, neat. Words that aren’t verbiage.

I never have a desk. See, I’ve never written at a desk in my life.

Really? Never?

I don’t write letters at a desk, I write them on anything that happens to be around.

Do you typically write indoors or outside?

Yes, I like to get indoors. Some people think you could teach poetry better outdoors. You know, the classes and things. You can’t do anything like that. You gotta get in, away from nature.

And why is that?

The bugs land on your page.

Well, thank you very much for joining us on The Poe Show, Mr. Frost. I personally love the idea of keeping work and people like yourself alive in the modern day. It gives a great perspective of the world and our human history.

Yes, things that you didn’t notice at the time. What you make a note of at the time is useful in one way but it never turns up in a form. It’s always you didn’t know you’d noticed. And the surprise of it is what stirs you and what stirs the reader too, that little surprise.

Thanks again. Rest in peace, Robert Frost.

Hello and welcome back to The Poe Show, I’m your host Tynan Portillo. I’ve added a little fire to this aftertalk, I feel like it gives a warmer feel to things so I hope you enjoy it.

If you liked this episode, text someone you know right now who would enjoy it and get them to listen as well. Even if it's someone in high school studying these poems for an English class. If you’re an author and you enjoy my work on The Poe Show I am listed on the site ACX for Audible and would love to work with you to bring your audiobook to life. I’ll probably get on Fiverr soon too. Follow, like, subscribe and comment your thoughts and suggestions for new episodes on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts and more. Just visit thepoeshow.com for details. Follow on Instagram @thepoeshowpodcast and on TikTok @poeshowpodcast. And remember you can send a fan mail text message directly to the show by following the link in the description.

Now, to address the elephant in the room, obviously Robert Frost is dead and has been for over 60 years. But I got this idea from watching an old Weird Al sketch where he did mock interviews with celebrities and made them super funny, and I later watched some interviews with Robert Frost where he read some of his own poetry, and I thought it was a cool idea to, figuratively, bring him onto the podcast. So I grabbed soundbites from the old interviews I found with Frost. For any wondering, NO AI WAS USED IN THE MAKING OF THIS EPISODE. I won't go into all of my beliefs on AI in this episode, but I will say that while AI can be a useful tool, too many people right now are attempting to use AI to make trash content in the hopes of just making money. It’s soulless, it’s tasteless, it’s inhuman, and it’s not art. Art is about human expression, which requires you to develop a voice about what you see in the world and the skills to bring that vision alive in your chosen artistic medium. If AI wrote a poem like Spirits of the Dead by Edgar Allan Poe, I wouldn’t care. Because the reason Spirits of the Dead speaks to me is because Poe lost so many dear people to him, and it’s his torment that I connect to, realizing that I’m not alone in mine.

Today is also gonna be another quick episode so I can focus on getting a longer episode all put together. And I’m currently narrating an audiobook too so I’m prioritizing that at this time to make sure the author gets what they want for their book. So I hope you enjoyed this episode, and if you did then share it with others and subscribe or follow.

That’s all for now, but you’ll hear from me again, on the next episode on The Poe Show podcast.