![]() If the poem works for us – for each reader must decide for herself whether the poem resonates with her experience – it affords a calibration for us as well. This poem is, to my mind, about calibration: about how the bird calibrates where he is in the year’s passage and then calibrates an appropriate response to his situation. Now we can hear it, easily: go to and click on the brief sound recording. I myself read and taught the poem for many years without ever having heard the song of the oven bird. With the wonders of the web, you can even hear its song: unexceptional, not particularly musical, its `prosaic' call is an element of the poem many of us would not be able to appreciate without the resources of the web recording. An oven bird is a small warbler, a species which gets its name because it builds a nest on the ground, a domed structure with an entrance on the side so that it resembles a small oven. ![]() Finally, another analogy is drawn between the passage of time as one season replaces another – as spring moves into summer – and the maturation of the human psyche. Then an analogy is extended between the bird and our human realm. The poem is built on several easily recognizable literary tropes: the bird is personified, so that its song is given human meaning and human resonance. Robert Frost's poem, “The Oven Bird,” is a poem of calibration. The question that he frames in all but words The bird would cease and be as other birdsīut that he knows in singing not to sing. When pear and cherry bloom went down in showersĪnd comes that other fall we name the fall. ![]() He says that leaves are old and that for flowers Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |