Profs and Pints Online presents: “Robert Frost’s Winter,” with Michael Manson, former lecturer on literature at American University and past president of the Robert Frost Society.

[ This talk will remain available in recorded form at the link given here for tickets and access.]

So begins “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” which ranks as one of the most popular American poems of the 20th century and helped cement Robert Frosts status as of one of our nation’s most beloved poets. As we approach the darkest evening of the year, be on hand for an online, interactive talk that will have you delighting in Frost and embracing winter, the subject of several of his poems.

Winter challenges modern urban Americans less immediately than it did Frost, who owned several New England farms. Yet the questions Frost raised through the metaphor of winter remain vital. Are humans meant to live and thrive on this planet, or is existence some cruel joke? How do we explain human resilience, the ability to keep pushing through despite the odds? Is there some force above us, in life itself, or some stubbornness at the heart of being human? What does it mean to thrive?

Frost raised questions like these in his poetry without answering them. For him, the answers are to be found in the process of making. Whether were making poems, keeping gardens, playing sports, building careers, or raising families, we are all turning chaos into order. Strongly spent, Frost says, is synonymous with kept, and he is inspired by those times when humans spend their lives strongly and thus keep them.

Come hear Michael Manson, a veteran scholar of Frost, read and discuss some of Frosts poems on winter and other subjects.  He’ll cover some of Frost’s best-known poems—“Stopping by Woods,” “Desert Places,” “The Wood-Pile”—as well as lesser-known works such as “Afterflakes,” “Questioning Faces,” and “Good-bye and Keep Cold.”

Profs & Pints Online: Robert Frost's Winter