Here's a topical poem (not only is today the longest day of the year, but it snowed here in Massachusetts yesterday)...

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost

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.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Interpretations of its meaning are endless. Death vs. life. Nature vs. culture. Adultery vs. faithfulness. Freedom/indulgence vs. responsibility/duty. Memory vs. focus. Santa Claus vs. reindeer. Etc.,.

Last year we took the poem up in writing class. The assignment was not to analyze it necessarily, but to describe how transform -- though plot, imagery, tone, etc-- it into first a short story, and then a novel. My transformation from poem to novel was about its form...


Stopping by Robert Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.

Let structure be the guide, the gauge;
Each line into a chapter stage;
A quatrain, thus, maps out a life -
Childhood, youth, parenting, old age.

Each hero flickers full of strife,
Consoles himself, lassoes a wife,
A new rime-child he lights - hurrah!
And dies well-fed like Mack the knife.

As you can see, a-a-b-a,
Will mold this family’s saga;
Four candles, sixteen iambi;
Each life, a semi-Chanukah.

Four lives; the last, do not deny,
Will catch up with the author’s I;
And where it goes, we can’t espy;
And where it goes, we can’t espy.