I think this is the first state that I am representing with a poet, despite my deep and abiding love of poetry…  I have been fascinated by Frost ever since my senior seminar on his poetry.  He is hard to pigeon-hole, just like the U.S. and just like his homestate of New Hampshire.  We frequently think of “The Road Less Taken” (so often misunderstood…), but he has a depth and breadth in his body of work that deserves a second look, if you’re so inclined…

photo credit: dougtone

First, a poem I just discovered courtesy of a wonderful Frost website:

To the Thawing WindCome with rain. O loud Southwester!
Bring the singer, bring the nester;
Give the buried flower a dream;
make the settled snowbank steam;
Find the brown beneath the white;
But whate’er you do tonight,
bath my window, make it flow,
Melt it as the ice will go;
Melt the glass and leave the sticks
Like a hermit’s crucifix;
Burst into my narrow stall;
Swing the picture on the wall;
Run the rattling pages o’er;
Scatter poems on the floor;
Turn the poet out of door.

photo credit: dougtone

And here are excerpts of some of my long-time favorites.  They are long, so I’ve only included a taste — click on the title for the full poem.

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulder in the sun,
And make gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there,
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.

photo credit: dougtone

After Apple-Picking

My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.

photo credit: dougtone

I could go on… and on…

But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Curious about what states we’ve done so far and which ones are on deck?

Photo by marxchivist

First, from Melanie Jones:

Alabama: To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (check out my To Kill A Mockingbird Sample Kit!)

Michigan: The Virgin Suicides by Jeffery Eugenides

Alaska: The Man Who Swam With Beavers by Nancy Lord

Arizona: The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

North Dakota: Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

Vermont: The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Hawaii: Heads by Harry by Lois-ann Yamanaka

Georgia: Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones

And I went out on my own for…

Florida: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Nora Zeale Hurston

Minnesota: In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien

Wisconsin: When Madeline Was Young by Jane Hamilton

Louisiana: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells (Jones’ pick) and The Awakening by Kate Chopin (my pick)

Colorado: Plainsong by Kent Haruf

Maryland: Anything by Anne Tyler

Georgia: Awakening by Kate Chopin

Ohio: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Arkansas: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Virginia: John Grisham

Idaho: Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

North Carolina: Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons

Tennesee: Run by Ann Patchett

New Jersey: Anything by Janet Ivanovich

Texas: Anything by Elmer Kelton

Connecticut: The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx

Montana: The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie

Utah: Edward Abbey

South Carolina: Pat Conroy

Iowa: Wallace Stegner

Pennsylvania: John Updike and James Michener

Wondering where your state is? Coming soon… In the meantime, weigh in on future picks!