Robert Frost, December 4, 1955
“Some folks call me an individualist. I think they mean I’m a cranky Yankee!
“The say that every poem has its ulteriority, its hidden meaning. I know that. To me, a poem is like a pond. Every once in a while a fish will break the surface shows somewhere – in a line, a phrase, a single word even.
“Freedom happens to me in bondage. Before you have any ideas at all you have to give up some freedom. Someone has said that the true poet never writes. He is free of the bonds of language and is a poet just the same. But I write, I write with meter and rhyme, which proves, I suppose, that I’m old-fashioned. Those are the bonds I choose for my freedom.”
