"Fireflies in the Garden" by Robert Frost - Norton Literature

Robert Frost was an American playwright and poet, born on March 26, 1874 in California.  The portion of his life on a farm served as the inspiration for many of his poems, renowned and acclaimed many times over.  Before his death of prostate surgery complications, he had received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry and the Congressional Gold Medal for his contributions.




"Fireflies in the Garden" by Robert Frost


Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal the stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.                      5
Only, of course, they cant sustain the part.
                                                                          [1928]

The entirety of this simple, six-versed poem is a metaphor, comparing the real stars and the fireflies that strive to imitate them.  Upon the arrival of night, the “real stars… fill the upper skies” along with their small, insignificant pretenders.  The poem describes the efforts of the fireflies to “Achieve a star-like start” in their attempt to emulate the stars, though, “of course, they can’t sustain the part.”  It is expected that Frost will pay respect to these microcosms of stars after the first two lines, but, after he uses strong diction to assure the readers that they were “never equal stars in size” and “never really stars at heart,” Frost conveys an entirely different tone.  As opposed to appreciation or contentment, this diction creates a tone of disdain or even contempt for the flies, and the announcement of their phoniness and role as a charlatan is filled with condescension.  Utilizing this tone, Frost seems to provide a commentary on the use of symbols themselves through his metaphorical poem: just as the firefly can only imitate a star in a weak and unsubstantial way, a literary symbol can only catch a brief and ephemeral aspect of something more significant.  Symbols and metaphors used in literature possess only the ability catch bits and pieces of the feeling that the actual object exudes.  Given the cold and unappreciative tone of the poem, Frost seems almost bitter; bitter about his inability to truly describe through a symbol a feeling that an object evokes, or perhaps bitter at the poetic inadequacy of language as a whole, represented by the inability of the fireflies to attain stardom.

"Driving Glove" by Claudia Emerson -- Norton Literature

Claudia Emerson was born January 13, 1957 in Virginia.  In recent years, she has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, and was named Poet Laureate of Virginia.  She now makes her residence in Virginia as an English professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University.


"Driving Glove" by Claudia Emerson


I was unloading groceries from the trunk
of what had been her car, when the glove floated
up form underneath the shifting junk--
a crippled umbrella, the jack, ragged
maps. I knew it was not one of yours,                                5
this more delicate, soft, made from the hide
of a kid or lamb. It still remembered
her hand, the creases where her fingers


had bent to hold the wheel, the turn
of her palm, smaller than mine. There was                       10
nothing else to do but return it--
let it drift, sink, slow as a leaf through water
to rest on the bottom where I have not
forgotten it remains--persistent in its loss.
                                                                                     [2005]

The poem “Driving Glove” is a deeply melancholic piece of a man’s conversation with his second partner.  While going about his everyday business unloading groceries, he describes finding a driving glove that belonged to his late wife.  This is a psychologically powerful event for him, as it is reflected by the sudden change in the structure of the poem.  Immediately, after a long dash mark, the poem shifts gears from a simple description of his task of unloading groceries to a slow motion description of the fall of his late wife’s souvenir.  Caught up in the past, he reminisces on the material of the glove (“this more delicate, soft, made from the hide/of a kid or lamb”), and even the creases that the glove “still remembered,” emphasizing the emotional connection he still has to his previous wife.   The deep and contemplative attention to even the smallest details creates an elegiac tone which slows down the poem and draws us into the alternate dimension in which the narrator experiences the passage of time.

After these details, however there is a slight tone change.  The narrator realizes he has been dwelling on this uncomfortable topic and, instead of holding on, does what is best for himself and moves on, though not entirely detached, remarking that “There was nothing else to do but return it—/let it drift, sink, slow as a leaf through water.”  Instead of abiding in the alternate dimension, the narrator realizes that life isn’t going to wait for him, and decisively (but not willingly) puts the glove back to rest, along with the memories of his wife, though the glove remains “persistent in its loss.”  With this change of time, we see a return from a mournful, contemplative tone to a detached and almost clinical tone found at the beginning; a tone that tries to forget the past because the wound hurts too much.  Thus, the two specific tones in the poem create alternate speeds of the passage of time, lengthening this relatively quick encounter to match the many years of partnership the narrator has lost.