Great Regulars: [Iain Crichton Smith's] poems

form a diary of sorts, as he shifts from moment to moment, in the classroom, at home, walking in the Highlands, or sitting on a bus, as in "Two Girls Singing", a haunting poem that recalls "The Solitary Reaper" by Wordsworth. The casual grace of the last two stanzas is peerless:

So on the bus through late November running
by yellow lights tormented, darkness falling,
the two girls sang for miles and miles together

And it wasn't the words or tune. It was the singing.

It was the human sweetness in that yellow,
the unpredicted voices of our kind.

from Jay Parini: The Guardian: New Collected Poems by Iain Crichton Smith--review

~~~~~~~~~~~

And the poet I mostly read is Robert Frost, who lived in Vermont for a good part of his life. I often wander in the woods behind his cabin in Ripton, and I think about him: the craggy-faced old man who had been through a great deal: a difficult marriage, decades of near depression, the death of two young children, the suicide of his beloved son Carol, a daughter's death in childbirth, the madness of his sister and one of his daughters. He was like Job, with countless personal tragedies: enough to bring a man down, as they say.

from Jay Parini: Vermont Public Radio: Vernal Pools

~~~~~~~~~~~