A place of shadows, memories, thoughts, discussions, essays, and whatever else rambles down the streets of Nowhere. Come join us, as we linger here, on the outside of nowhere.
A place of shadows, memories, thoughts, discussions, essays, and whatever else rambles down the streets of Nowhere. Come join us, as we linger here, on the outside of nowhere.
5 comments:
Robert Frost.
Little-known fact? I might be confusing him with someone else, but wasn't he gay, and also almost died once, or something spirituality-related like that?
Yes, it's Robert Frost, probably my favorite American Poet. And he was gay, at a time when being gay was pretty much accepted but not really talked about. My favorite poem of his will always be, "Two Roads".
I have to disagree with you there, friend. Homosexuality was not generally accepted during Robert Frost's lifetime. If it were, he would never have felt social pressure to be married to a woman. He died in 1963, six years before the Stonewall Riots which are generally regarded as the beginning of the gay civil rights movement.
What I mean about his homosexuality being accepted is that in the thirties many writers, actors, and other famous people were bisexual or gay, and while it was known by their peers, it wasn't really mentioned in polite society. Erroll Flynn, Truman Capote, and later, Montgomery Clift, Rock Hudson, and others. Especially in the thirties there was a much more relaxed attitude toward sexuality than there is today. This is just my take on the subject after reading about the era. Many men did marry, as they do now, and don't admit to their sexual preference. This is rapidly changing, and for the better, I must say. A line from the poem "Two Roads" that says, "and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference", always struck me as a revelation that his life varied from the norm.
But then, it could just be a poem, as Frost said of his poem, Stopping by woods on a snowy evening. Many people believed it was a poem about death, but he said it was a poem about stopping by woods on a snowy evening.
Ah, I see what you mean. I agree then, it seems as if homosexuality was accepted more in some social circles and times than others. I'm glad things are improving too, so people can just be who they are.
As for the meanings of his poems, people like to try to make all sorts of things out of them. I wouldn't make a very good poetry student because I tend to take things literally. A woods is just a woods to me.
BTW you might find the movie Kinsey interesting from a point of view of how people think or used to think about sex. I wouldn't watch it with kids around though, it can get pretty graphic in places. Interesting though.
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