Poetic Pints at Two Roads Brewery Tuesdays in April to Help Stratford Library

Mending Wall by Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbours? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbours.”

Update:  Two Roads has reignited last year’s campaign, so come by every Tuesday of April 2014! 

April is National Poetry Month, though every month should be.  Perhaps one of Dan’s favorite times of year is when he teaches how to read and gather all the meatiness from poetry…even how to write it with his students.  There’s just something amazing about a poem that has the ability to inspire, freeze a moment or message, then transfer it into your heart and mind for safekeeping.  Some of Dan’s favorite poets are Robert Frost, William Butler Yeats (we learned a lot more about him during our recent trip to Ireland), Saul Williams, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Allen Ginsberg (“Howl” is beyond compare).

Well, we’re happy to share that Two Roads Brewing Company in Stratford, Connecticut is doing their part to support the written and spoken word for the entire month of April.  Just come by any Tuesday, order a pint, and they’ll donate $1 to the Stratford Library.  It’s an easy way to give back!  So, get out there and drink up!  And, definitely make sure to check out Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken,” the inspiration behind Two Roads’ name.

Two Roads Brewing Co.

1700 Stratford Ave

Stratford, CT 06615

Phone:  (203) 335-2010