Robert Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963 / San Francisco)

Frost's A Brook in the City is not about the Nazi holocaust. If one has strong connections to and/or empathy to the holocaust victims of WWII, they are of course free to relate to the poem that way. However, my personal goal is to understand as much as possible what an author's original intent, and Frost could not have meant the holocaust because (as one commentator noted) this poem was written in 1924: before Hitler's rise to power and WWII and the holocaust. I really like this poem because I too love nature and lament how we moderns can so pursue progress that we fail to note its costs to the natural world as well as (perhaps) more human-connected ways of life. Only those who live through such transitions even know, for example, that there was once something like a farmhouse or brook where now are only concrete canyons and sewage systems, malls, car-choked streets and the like. Those generations that grow up after the fact cannot imagine any other world, and may not like when the older set laments where things are headed. But in fact there were worlds different from this one, and this one may not be the better one.

wow this is a sad write..the brook and apple trees
was destroyed...two life giving sources..shame on
whoever did this.. :)

i'm speechless this is master piece

Hi
Wow you all got pretty riled up about Dimitri's interesting interpretation. However the poem was first published in a 1924 collection, pre-dating the camps. I think it really may be about a brook being polluted and buried by city growth. But Dimitri, your interpretation will haunt me.

Hey Adolf-I wish it was your family getting killed you prick
Jake-Yours too
You people have no respect
How do you hate on Jews because we're prosperous and wealthy?
You have no one else to blame but yourselves for being bitter failures.

I completely agree with you Mr. Hitler, I remember those days, all those jews that died cause they were stupid fags

I find the depth of Frost's poems in the fact that it seems to me that he is at the same time referring very observing a very natural event in New England farm life, an observation on our relationship with the wild and old ways, and alluding to our relationship with that which is wild and and natural in our own souls and psyches. How we age, what we fear, how we relate to death and other people. Each poem can be read quite well in any of these ways.

This poem can be read alongside Hyla Brook as a fine example of Frost's empathy with nature, which we exploit at our cost. As always, Frost was way ahead of his time.

I love this poem. Rather than speaking of the Holocaust, I believe that it speaks of the power and strength of living an authentic life not ruled by fear. The metaphor of a constant stream of true self which underlies cement walks of civilization which would keep us from our true destiny is one that I find very compelling.

I honestly hate this poem. This poem brings me back to the time of the Holocaust. Jews were being burned alive and incarcerated while the Germans just sat back watched this disaster happen. Please remove this poem from this website.