"Sometimes It Seems As If": A Talk by Robert Frost October 23, 1947
Frost gave this talk at Dartmouth College as part of the Great Issues series, a mandatory course for seniors that used weekly guest lectures to explore important current events of politics, science, and the arts. Transcribed, annotated and introduced by James Sitar, the talk appeared In Literary Imagination Volume 10 Number 1 2008, published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics (ALSC). [To take poetry right is] another way to take life right. And that means not to stick too hard to any particular precept. Suppose I said for instance certain ones--they're always rattling around in my mind. Suppose I said this one: the great problem is to know "how to o'errule" . . . How to o'errrules the harsh divorce That parts things natural from divine. See the precept in that is that you must remember it's hard to o'errule the harsh divorce That parts things natural from divine. And for the duration of the piece--if yo...