Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “Robert Frost’s Winter Poems,” a solstice evening exploration of a beloved poet’s thoughts on the season, with Michael Manson, former lecturer on literature at American University and past president of the Robert Frost Society.
“Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.”
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 Frost's status as of one of our nation’s most beloved poets.
Come to Crooked Run Fermentation in Sterling as we approach the darkest evening of the year for talk that will have you delighting in Frost and embracing the arrival of winter.
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 we’re writing poems, keeping gardens, playing sports, building careers, or raising families, we are all turning chaos into order. In all pursuits, Frost said, “strongly spent is synonymous with kept,” and he is inspired by those times when humans spend their lives strongly and thus keep them.
Be on hand as Michael Manson, a veteran scholar of Frost, reads and discusses Frost's 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.” The experience will be magical, and you’ll end up with a different perspective on the season ahead. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image by Canva.