Rereading Frost

by Linda Pastan

Sometimes I think all the best poems

have been written already,

and no one has time to read them,

so why try to write more?

At other times though,

I remember how one flower

in a meadow already full of flowers

somehow adds to the general fireworks effect

as you get to the top of a hill

in Colorado, say, in high summer

and just look down at all that brimming color.

I also try to convince myself

that the smallest note of the smallest

instrument in the band,

the triangle for instance,

is important to the conductor

who stands there, pointing his finger

in the direction of the percussions,

demanding that one silvery ping.

And I decide not to stop trying,

at least not for a while, though in truth

I’d rather just sit here reading

how someone else has been acquainted

with the night already, and perfectly.

“Rereading Frost” from Queen of a Rainy Country. © 2006 by Linda Pastan

Sometimes I think all the best poems
have been written already,
and no one has time to read them,
so why try to write more?

This feeling – that the best art already has been made – is a recognizable thought for most artists. Even so: IT IS A MISCONCEPTION; there is always more art to be made!

The task, for every one of us, is not to make THE BEST ART in the world, but, just like Pastan so wisely points out in the poem, to add our share to the totality of art in the world.

Sometimes this even means to appropriate an already existing body of art:

…