Reading Colorblind

One of the more traditional and most prominent themes present in poetry, plays and all other types of creative writing is the theme of colors. Though colors have been used often through the centuries of literature we have documented, colors still escape me when I read through poems and plays the first time through. I never really thought that seeing colors would change my perspective on reading poetry, until I read poems by Robert Frost and Charles Simic.

Robert Frost is known for carrying many different themes throughout his poetry, especially pessimism and nature, but Frost's attention to colors is very intriguing. One of the poems where color rang out the loudest was Frost's poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay". The poem reads:

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early  leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

When first reading through this poem alongside Frost's other works, the major things I noticed were the style and the emphasis on nature, but upon reading the poem more closely, I realized the paradox present in the first two lines. When plants start to bloom in the season of Spring, everyone imagines green, but that's simply not true for every plant. Some plants bloom blue, red, orange, pink, etc., and some plants around where Frost probably lived when he was in England bloomed gold. It's easy to see this simple paradox, but thinking of what else the colors green and gold can stand for will bring even more depth to the poem. If nature stands for life, then gold may stand for money, which would bring a completely new meaning to the first two lines. In this context, instead of talking about flowers blooming in spring, Frost could be telling his readers that money is hardest to hold on to and only "lasts an hour".

A contemporary poet named Charles Simic also focuses on the theme of colors in his poetry, especially in the poem "The White Room". In this poem, Simic doesn't actually describe a white room, but a "woman who always wore white". This woman describes truth as "bald and cold" in the poem. The color black is also highlighted in this poem, as Simic ties the color to Gods who are "disguising themselves as black hairpins". The woman in white and the Gods disguised in black are designed to be opposites in this poem.

The styles of these poems may be slightly comparable, but the major connection between the two is the theme of colors. Both poets have a color headlining in their titles, and both use colors to go against the traditional view of what those colors may be associated with. Frost uses gold to signify both spring and money, instead of green, and Simic uses white to signify seclusion and black to signify gods.

To all readers and lovers of poems, the suggestion to pay particular attention to color may seem like common sense, but to all those who are just starting to read poetry (like me), I would definitely advise looking into the colors of the poems. There's much more to poetry that can be understood when noticing the theme of colors instead of reading poetry colorblind.


Suggested poetry blog of the week: http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/