BIRCHES by Robert Frost
Event Details
SALON DETAILS:
- Facilitated by Caroline Hammond
- Single meeting study
- Wednesday 2 March 2022,
6-8.00pm (GMT) - £25, includes background materials and opening notes.
When he wrote Birches in 1913, Robert Frost was living in Beaconsfield in England, far away from the New England woodlands of his childhood. Saying “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader” Frost claimed never to have started a poem the ending of which he already knew. This poem manages to be many things at once: a celebration of joyful childhood play, an interrogation of memory and a technical tour de force with a cascade of images rendered in iambic pentameter that comes very close to the sound of everyday speech.
Birches is one of Frost’s most widely admired and anthologised poems. Over the course of two hours, we will work towards a deeper understanding of the poem through repeated readings, analysis and discussion.
