Poem about (not) grading poetry essays

September 28, 2023 9:23 PM

There's a poem I'm trying to find that's about grading essays about "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" (I think, could be a different Frost poem) but procrastinating, and maybe it's getting late and the narrator is drinking wine and the essays aren't getting graded. It's got the wit of Billy Collins but I don't think it's by him. This has become un-Googleable, please help.
posted by one_bean to Writing & Language (6 answers total)

It sounds like Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins. I will respect the copyright and not include it here but Collins describes the way that he wishes his student would explore a poem - imagery about holding it up to the light or listening etc but instead the students just want to torture a confession out of it.

It is one of my favorites.
posted by metahawk at 10:05 PM on September 28, 2023 [5 favorites]

Oh, wait. Nothing about Robert Frost in that Collins' poem.
posted by metahawk at 10:27 PM on September 28, 2023

Possibly this?
posted by kite at 11:16 PM on September 28, 2023 [7 favorites]

Response by poster: It's not either of those - kite's definitely close and in the same spirit, but the poem I'm thinking of doesn't have the same meter as the Frost poem.
posted by one_bean at 7:54 AM on September 29, 2023

Best answer: "Over there on the dining room table
are just twenty-five of the thousands of essays
on the poetry of Robert Frost
produced this week alone in the USA,
the world leader in essays on Robert Frost....

...And yet two days have passed, an entire weekend,
and it’s Sunday evening and I am having a glass of wine
and the essays on ambiguity in the poetry of Robert Frost
remain unassessed by me, and this is getting very serious."

“Robert Frost” by George Bilgere

(Appeared on The Writer's Almanac.)
posted by MonkeyToes at 10:36 AM on September 29, 2023 [13 favorites]

Response by poster: That's it, thank you! That must be where I originally heard it, too.
posted by one_bean at 11:48 AM on September 29, 2023