1206: Birches by Robert Frost

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

American Public Media

Arts, Performing Arts

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2024

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today’s poem is Birches by Robert Frost. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

It’s fall, and that means “back-to-school”. We put together this week’s episodes for the educators in our audience — especially those of you who may be looking for a little Slowdown treatment on those classroom classics, from Shakespeare to Frost. We hope you all enjoy these selections, as learners of any age.

\In this episode, Major writes… “I have long admired today’s poem by Robert Frost. “Birches” spotlights a young boy who makes his own fun in the outdoors. It’s a poem about self-reliant play. It is powerful for how it precisely describes a boy’s ascent up a tree then his launch onto solid ground. In that sense, the poem becomes an allegory for the speaker, who himself wishes to climb out of his adult world.”

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Transcript

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0:00.0	As a public media podcast, the slowdown relies on donations from our community of listeners.
0:06.0	Contribute today to help power our show for episodes to come.
0:10.4	Visit slowdown Show.org
0:13.0	slash donate and thank you.
0:16.0	It's fall and that means back to school.
0:20.0	We put together this week's episodes for the educators in our audience,
0:25.0	especially those of you who may be looking for a little slowdown treatment
0:30.0	on those classroom classics, from Shakespeare to Frost.
0:34.8	We hope you all enjoyed these selections as learners of any age. I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.
0:49.6	I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.
0:57.0	In our house, we owned a few gaming consoles, Xbox and PlayStation. Initially, I worried about bringing in devices that would disrupt my children's growth.
1:18.0	I thought multiplayer platforms would invite strangers into their ears.
1:24.9	I worried about cyberbullying.
1:27.6	Social media accounts were out of the question.
1:31.8	Extended family teased me because I refused to buy a mobile phone for my 10-year-old
1:38.3	son. My kids could only use my computer during homework hours.
1:44.0	I long to protect them from the electronic wilderness growing around us.
1:50.0	They felt cheated out of experiences most of their friends and cousins were having.
1:55.6	I eventually agreed to a cell phone, but I set up the strictest parental controls.
2:04.4	Beyond fears of predators, what I ultimately wanted to protect
2:09.4	was their interior life, that part of their imagination that makes up stories, that
2:16.7	rooms when alone, that part of their mind that muses and ponder's life.
	...

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