Frosty

                                                                 picture credits

Robert Frost’s “the road not taken”,

wait, I will not take that road,

instead I will take the road less traveled by exploring “After Apple Picking”

As I read the poem, I could not but help but being caught up in the same dreamy and surrealistic feelings generated whenever one reads just about anything by Frost. Recurring themes of nature coupled with man’s place (both intended as well as unintended place) within nature. What am I doing here, where am I going, was it all worthwhile? Questions that haunt Frost’s work, “After Apple Picking” being no exception.

He begins by coupling man with heaven then sliiiiides into the synonymy of heaven and nature being one and the same. It is the man’s perception of these places that differs. Tools begin to pop up in the poem. Work (man’s labor towards a goal) begin to dot the poetic landscape. I use that artsy term “landscape” since it implies a very larger than life very real place, that for the most part is taken for granted. It is there in the background, we look at it in passing, but rarely appreciate it fully, not even realizing that we and our immediate surroundings are a landscape for others that are far away and looking towards us. The landscape kind of sneaks up on a viewer at times, whilst other times it exerts a powerful spiritual and emotional impact. Much like Frost’s poetry.

Close read questions

1.    The title is kind of boring. I suppose that it implies work of picking, not the fun of eating the apples. However, when one reads the poem, it IS actually about the labors and efforts with not much about the rewards. “After”? why after? To be literal, it should read “during” or ‘the process of”. But then, frost could be tricking us, with post tense used to imply that it really IS after, with the speaker dreaming or remembering past exertions.

2.    The words I know. Some used little in this day and age, such as hoary or russet. But are fun to see conjuring images of an older age.

3.    There is a rhyme scheme, easier to pick up when read out loud. Abba ccded , but then it jumps, odd later it starts in line 14 with aaabcdcb as close as I can tell. Is it a mixture of a weird rhyme with free verse? I am no poet and could use some help please.

4.    Work dream. Most people have them. We takes elements of our everyday world, then inserts them as puzzles for our subconscious mind to sort out. Why am I doing this? What good is it? Where am I going? Couples our activities with more important “work” of even perhaps a divine nature. Could picking apples be saving souls?

5.    Images. This poem is nothing but images conjured from the speaker (dreamer) inside his own dream imaging in a surrealistic way, events from his day job.  Images set to conjure double meanings.

Ladder sticking in a tree – (journey towards heaven?)

Barrel - (unfilled, his work is never done)

Apples  still left – (also unpicked, more tasks)

Scent of apples –(scents conjure memories)

Hoary grass – (frost on the grass)

Pane of glass – (ice from the frozen water)

6.    Facts inferred

a.    The speaker is a dreamer. Later I found that he is a Pisces, or rather born just after this sign, like he almost is but not quite, we fish are notorious dreams, fail at times with the ‘doing”, but fabulous dreamers.

b.    Experience on the farm.

c.     Experience in nature. May sound the same, while a farm is rural, it is not always wild.

d.    Has had experiences with work that is never done.

e.    Has had this dream before

f.     Sets lofty goals

g.    Obsessive compulsive

h.    Wastes not. (even bruised apples have a place making cider at least)

i.     Harvest time is over, winter coming on.

j.     Loves his apples

7.     Tones – Frost uses words that are descriptive of nature, reality items that at the same time are metaphors for surrealistic ideas and ideals or spirituality. These well recognized forms such as apples coupled with everyday chores such as picking them gain a connection with the reader. For instance, if he was working at an electronics assembly line soldering connections on a circuit board, well most of us would not be able to relate.

a.    Reverent

b.    Weary

c.     Ambitious

d.    Philosophical

e.    Buddhist

f.     Dreamer

g.    Surrealist

h.    Lulling sounds of words

i.     Nature lover

8.    Structure – I can not pick up the formality of the poem. It sounds like water running, each sentence running into the next most of the time, then it rhymes like waves pounding on the beach.  Is this the poet trying to tell us that there is an underlying order to nature but that there is disorder as well? Chaos and order coexisting? Both have a role? Or am I reading too much into things?

9.    He falls asleep. Works in his sleep. This surrealistic world is like a puzzle that he is attempting to put together. The answers to his seemingly endless work is the tension, the release of that tension is sleep.

10. Images and sounds that resonate;

a.    Pane of glass. It is cold and blurry, OF nature, showing only part of what actually is. Reality showing a perception, a filter.

b.    Two pointed ladder in the tree. Journey towards divinity.

c.     Apple. Images of the garden of Eden. Temptation and life giving at the same time.

Reading, re-reading, writing about the poem has me in development. That is, my eyes are beginning to open that there is more to this dream. There is a great deal of religious overtones, questions about what we are doing here, nature of man, nature of god, nature of nature. Has my brain rolling almost to fast to put down on paper. Perhaps I should follow this train of thought and make it the topic of my essay.

Decker