Dust of Snow

I sometimes use this poem in my haiku workshops to show the difference between objectivity (first part) and subjectivity (second part). Another way to put this is that first stanza shows, while the second stanza tells. Haiku tend to aim more towards the first part of this poem (minus “The way”), and seek to trust the image to show rather than tell. Telling can sometimes be effective in other poems, though. For me this poem would carry about the same value if it said, in haiku terms, something like “from a hemlock tree / a crow shakes down / the dust of snow”—and nothing more. In this way the words trust the image to suggest a positive change of mood without imposing that idea. That being said, this is one of my favourite Frost poems as it is. In speaking of this poem in her essay, “Against Influence,” Kay Ryan says “While seeming to be quietly faithful to some quaint New England scene, he is actually stripping away every bit of extraneous color: the poem winds up as simple as a Japanese ink study. . . . That’s where the life always is, right as you walk under the tree expecting more New England and getting Japan instead” (from Synthesizing Gravity: Selected Prose, New York, Grove Press, 2020, page 288).