“Birches” by Robert Frost: An Optical Poem, 2024

“When I see birches bend to left and right / Across the lines of straighter darker trees, / I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.” On April 7, 1955, Robert Frost delivered a poetry reading at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Here, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author recites his classic poem “Birches,” in which an older narrator reflects on the solitude of a childhood spent swinging birch trees in the forest. This optical poem illustrates Frost’s recitation with artworks from The Met’s collection juxtaposed with footage of wildlife in Kingston, New York. The event, originally recorded on reel-to-reel audio tape, was digitized in 2020.

Other poets invited to read at The Met included W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, and E. E. Cummings.

Read the poem here.