Kids who broke into Robert Frost house are sentenced to discussing his poetry

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: A Case of Poetic Justice. Literally.
By Jay Parini
Sunday, June 22, 2008; B02

WEYBRIDGE, Vt.

....I was horrified to hear about the break-in but relieved to learn that the place -- where I had stayed off and on over many years, especially while writing my biography of Frost -- was not damaged beyond repair. As it happened, I had just finished a book called " Why Poetry Matters," a study on the role poetry can play in our daily lives that deals extensively with Frost's ideas about the use of metaphor....With these thoughts of Frost floating in my head, I got a call from the prosecutor in the case. His idea, which the judge embraced, was that part of the young invaders' community service would involve discussing Frost's poetry with me. If they studied with me for a period of time (to be determined by the judge and me), their criminal records in this case would be erased....

***

I settled on two main poems, " Out, Out --" and " The Road Not Taken." Other poems would have done as well or better, but these came immediately to mind, and I went with them. I've been teaching in colleges for 33 years, and I've never missed with "Out, Out -- ," a poem about a boy who loses his hand while cutting wood on a Vermont farm. The result is almost immediate death. Those who watch him die simply go back to work, as they must. The poem is set in the years of subsistence farming in Vermont, and a family could not lose a moment laying in the wood for winter.

Frost begins with an astonishing vision of Vermont: "Five mountain ranges one behind the other/Under the sunset far into Vermont." I've often stood at the Frost house and looked out at the mountains, and I understood those lines in context. I repeated them with emphasis. Each of these kids had at some point stood still, looked out over the Green Mountains and experienced the glory of that view. This is life itself, which Frost puts at stake in his poem. The students were unprepared for the sudden death of the boy, the shocking finality of it, and the fact that those who were not the "one dead" turned immediately back to work. They registered their shock, and I could see from their rapt attention that Frost had once again worked his uncanny magic. He had unlocked some hearts.

Then I turned to "The Road Not Taken." I did so gingerly, fully aware that the poem is complicated, shrewd beyond measure....(I)n this case -- in a stifling public building in Addison County, surrounded by anxious kids trying to wipe their records clean as they pored over my Xeroxed copies of the poetry -- I felt that I had to work more simply, with the symbol itself: two roads, choices. "Life is about choices," said one of the teens. Indeed, I said. I pointed out that the speaker in the poem was deep in the woods and that it was always difficult to figure out the right road when confronted with a forking path. They acknowledged having had many such experiences, quite literally, in the Vermont woods.

"You are now in deep woods," I told them. They seemed confused. "If this isn't a deep wood, I don't know what is," I added. Many of them lit up....

A very shy and frightened-looking boy in a baseball cap said, "I took the wrong road."

"You did," I said. "But there are other roads. Lots of them."...

(Jay Parini, a poet and novelist, teaches at Middlebury College.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/20/AR2008062002679_pf.html

[zanne]

1. Pure genius! nt

[RoyGBiv]

2. Oh, that's just awesome ...

Creative sentencing like this should be used more often than it is, imo.

[boobooday]

3. This is really brilliant

A wonderful way to address the situation.

[Carnea]

4. Now if this doesn't violate the Cruel and Unusual clause nothing does.

:evilgrin:

[AndyTiedye]

5. If They Used Vogon Poetry, That Would Violate the 8th

[Runcible Spoon]

10. hahaha no doubt.

not making light of the break-in, but gawd I can't stand Frost; he seems to be tailor-made for vapid suburban graduation speeches.

[EFerrari]

6. This seems to happen every summer. It happened last year, too. n/t

[Hekate]

7. Redemptive. That's a wonderfully redemptive story for a Sunday morning...

I get so sick of one-size-fits-all punishment for youngsters, zero-tolerance, and lock-em-up for the kids. Jay Parini is a man with a heart and soul to reach these kids, and so is the judge.

Thanks for this small glimmer of humanity.

Hekate

[DeepModem Mom]

8. I loved it, too, Hekate. And as it happens, I've read Parini's bio of Frost --

and would highly recommend it. I learned so much that was interesting about his life that I'd never known. One of our own, he's taken his place in the eyes of most who consider these things, among the greatest poets.

[rurallib]

9. It would be nice if there were a followup about a year or two

from now to see if lessons were truly learned.

[struggle4progress]

11. "Out, Out - "

The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside him in her apron
To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw,
As if it meant to prove saws know what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap -
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all -
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man's work, though a child at heart -
He saw all was spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off -
The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!"
So. The hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then - the watcher at his pulse took a fright.
No one believed. They listened to his heart.
Little - less - nothing! - and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

[DeepModem Mom]

12. Thank you, struggle4progress. nt

[knitter4democracy]

17. I'll never forget working on that in AP English my senior year.

We all thought it referenced "Out, out damn spot" and got it all wrong. I'll never forget Mrs. Holly explaining that it really was about "Out, out brief candle" and not sin and blood but instead how short life really is and how meaningless to everyone else. Amazing.

[Festivito]

13. Bravo! Not the usual cheap justice we know too well.

The richest country on the face of the planet should not have so much cheap vengeful justice.

This is a light amidst the dark.

[onethatcares]

14. "I think that I shall never see"

I hope they make those kids do dissertations and explanations and finally graduations.

[malaise]

15. Refreshingly beautiful

Would have to happen in a progressive state.

[knitter4democracy]

16. I've seen poetry do that to teens. Great idea.

Sometimes I miss the classroom. When you see the light go on and they look down at the page in wonder and finally understand it, whatever that means to them, it's amazing to see. Great idea.

[Trillo]

18. What a great story!

In the midst of the gloom of constitutional violations and doom of war, its so nice to read that a judge has a level of mercy and smarts. Those kids are lucky given our zero tolerance world, hope they learn their lesson (and their poetry lessons too).

[proud patriot]

19. perfect