Modern Age - Summer 2016 - 6

MODERN AGE SUMMER 2016

of John F. Kennedy. Later, when Frost made his ill-fated "cultural
exchange" journey to the Soviet Union a few months before his
death, I heard the suggestion-although I don't remember by
whom-that the poet ought to have recited the "Mending Wall"
lines quoted above in order to taunt Nikita Khrushchev about the
Berlin Wall. None of this would be part of the memories of later
generations.
Nevertheless, Frost's poetry has more of a claim on our attention than merely his high public profile during my youth. He is
certainly one of the greatest American poets, indeed among the
greatest poets of the modern era writing in English (or any language that I know). Through the 1960s, and perhaps longer, one
could hardly have gotten through high school without reading a
few of his poems: "The Road Not Taken," "Stopping by Woods on
a Snowy Evening," "Fire and Ice," "Nothing Gold Can Stay," and,
very probably, "Mending Wall." A not insignificant segment of
the American public that went to school forty to fifty years ago
might reasonably have been expected to recall some passages,
however fleetingly, of Frost's poetry.
What is more, Frost's place in our national literary consciousness has not been filled by more recent contemporary poets.
Politicians and journalists are not quoting Anthony Hecht or
Dana Gioia or even Rita Dove. How many would even know
these names, although Gioia served as director of the NEA during the Bush administration? This lack of awareness is regrettable,
because knowledge of poetry can serve as more than an adornment for the discourse of politicians, commentators, and bureaucrats. I have suggested already in these pages ("Poetry, Politics,
and Robert Frost," Modern Age 54.1-4: 108-18) that "The Death of
the Hired Man" might prove illuminating for the shapers of social
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Modern Age - Summer 2016

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