Robert Frost Was Not A Farmer

Doesn't Robert Frost look sweet with his egg basket?  Frost, the provincial poet, was popular in his time and remains one of America's most beloved poets, yet he is often misunderstood.  Even the received meaning of his famous poem, "The Road Not Taken," is largely inaccurate.  I've recently spent time studying the life and work of Frost.   This is what I've learned: Robert Frost was kind of a jerk.  Second, Frost was a brilliant poet.  Finally, although Robert Frost played the part of the New England country boy, he was more poet, more scholar, more traveling muse, than farmer.  Take his poem "Mending Wall."  It's my favorite Frost poem, but it also proves my point.  A farmer never questions the need for good fences, nor does he philosophize when he's trying to repair one.  In "After Apple-picking," Frost leaves half the harvest in the trees. That's just stupid. I understand that Frost wasn't really writing about apples or fences--his aim was more transcendent than that--yet as a farmer's daughter, I can't help but notice Frost's incompetence.  

My father and brother, like Frost, have worked at many jobs.  My dad has been a teacher, a pastor, an accountant, and the Public Administrator for his county.  My brother works as a computer programmer and owns a very successful business.  And yet, my father and brother are farmers through and through.  They think quite differently than Frost.  Frost was brilliant.  His poetry was brilliant.  He's just not the poet I would turn to to understand the unique relationship a farmer has with his land. 
I was recently introduced to the poetry of Terry Jacobson.   His daughter Anna is the current resident artist at The Arts Center here in Jamestown.  At a Saturday morning watercolor class, Anna told me about her father who is both poet and organic farmer.  I spent an enjoyable afternoon reading Jacobson's work.  His poetry embodies the frustrations, joys, and deep communion farmers share with their land.  In reading Jacobson's poetry, I read the soul of the farmer, the kind of farmer that I recognize in my father and brother.  


One's Place
 by Terry Jacobson

I am the walker of the fields,
a steward
of the interests of the land.
I am a manager
of crops, rotations, tillage,
the brains and nerves
of this living organism
of a farm.
I am the feeder,
the nursemate, and
the manure pitcher for my cows
a servant in their eyes, and mine,
yet boss too.
I am the planter and the reaper
on this farm,
yet I am more dependent on it
than it is on me.
Its soil or a fraction of it
pulses in my arteries,
builds my muscles,
almost as if I had roots
in the ground
like the plants I tend.
I am the representative
of this farm to the community,
a voice for this organism
speaking out for justice
and sustainability,
gaining credibility from
the land I represent.
I am the shoveler in the bin
the mower and the stacker
of the hay,
the steward for a time
on this living farm.

Read about Frost's poem  "The Road Not Taken."
Visit Anna Jacobson's blog.  Her graduate work was in printmaking.  Her handmade books are my favorite.
A look at sustainable agriculture: Terry and Janet Jacobson's farm.