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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (April 22, 1962)
MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFOHD. OREGON lobert Frost Does the Imposs r W. R. HIGGINBOTHAM .,1,,, m,v - - . -m jf ' ""l ism had Irft the public dis-, mud Pr... In,ern..,.n.l ; !FtTV Sj enchamcd w,,h poc.ry. lUJf IT h J inh Frnst. vonrp in-ihp ' f?5. A rV ..i'S'VO -' 1 "An art that has failed tolMonfAm llfACC UrAflllf StJNDAY. APRIL 22. 1962 Bole By W. R. HIGGINBOTHAM United Preis International Bob Frost, you're in-the book's a hit. Vour simple Vermont rhyming kit Those plain and cadenced lines- . Why, man, ii. frightened A-bomb times Vour aged but ageless hand, Across a needful land Too still too long Has led-a song! New York il'PU Robert Frost, the venerable Vermont poet the country saw in an enchanting moment on tele vision during the Kennedy inauguration, has done the impossible. He has pul a vol ume of quality poems on the hard-cover best sel'. list. It is difficult to find out when that happened last. Besides setting a literary record, Frost also may be doing something no other poet has succjeded in doing for half a century or more. He may popularize the whole art of writing poetry end entice people back to reading it-which most haven't done seriously since school days. Gambled on Printing Alfred C. Edwards, presi dent of Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Frost's publisher, gambled an unprecedented fiO.OOO-volume first printing on "In the Clearing" for sale et $4 a copy. It is Frost's first bonk in 15 years. It went on ale March 26, the poet's 88lh birthday. The advance sale hit 27,000 topics. Thirteen thousand more went in a few days. Ed wards has ordered 25.000 more. He expects to hit 100, 000 before the year is out. Paperback publication is a possibility - and that could run in millions. But for a hard-cover book of poems, Frost has smashed all marks for poetry in records kept since 1895. Only 11 volumes of verse have ranked as best sellers in 67 years and only four or five nf those could be classed as what the literati would re gard as "serious" poetry. The last best selling poem was Alice Duer Miller's 1941 war time "White Cliffs of Dover." Nsver Were Profound But most others have been Ip 'he ranks of Edgar A. Guest (" Takes a Heap o' Livin' To Make a House a Home") nH Robert W. Service ("The V ;. s V. DOES IMPOSSIBLE Robert Frost, the venerable Vermont poet the country saw in an enchanting moment on television dur ing the Kennedy inauguration, has done the impossible. He has put a volume of quality poems on the hard-cover book best seller list. It is difficult to find out when fW ; j that happened last. "In the Clearing." Frost's first book in 15 years, went on sale March 26, the poet's 88th birthday, and has been selling so rapidly that its pub lishers expect it to reach the 100,000 mark in sales before the year is out. Frost is shown here relaxing at his home. (UPI) Shooting of Dan McGrew"). T. ey have been popular. But they never were considered profound. Frost is looked up on as a wise man. What has concerned pub lishers for many years is whether there is an audience for volumes of poetry. Except for paperbacks, a good sale of a hard-cover volume of poets, by established men whose works grace the college-used collections, is 2,500 copies. From a literary standpoint. the mark Frost's volume sets may be more important than the volume itself. Frost's book is largely in vhat the critics call traditional verse. It is regular. It rhymes. It slays in the moulds familiar to those who studied the stylized Eng lish verse forms in school. It far from the free verse schools now generally called modernists in poetry. Both in Older Years The literary fact is that America hasn't had a popular poet - in the sense that a novelist or a movie star is popular - born since 1900. The best known, Frost and Carl Sandburg, both are far up in years. On the other side from the traditionalists are the poets who took up where white bearded Walt Whitman, vin tage American Civil War 100, of several volumes of poetry. years ago, gave them the pc-1 rccenty wrote in ,he Npw York Times book review sec tion that 40 years of modern- etic measure in loose, flow ing, unfixed verse forms. With the advent of free verse, the sonnet - 14 lines of rhymed five-beat lines-fell in low esteem. Now and again a traditionalist broke through fo. a while but generally the rhymers were classed with Robert Service and the poets doing greeting card doggerel. Starting from where Whit man said, "I sound my bar baric yawp ove. the roofs of the world,'' (Song of Myself, 1855) imitator- took free verse exprc jion way out to a point where typography substituted for ..ords - the poem was made by the way it was printed on a page. Finally in recent years the yawp became a beatnik yap with devotees gasping at the magnificence of pure garble. By this time nobody was reading poetry. This Frost may change. His volume includes such lines as: 'It takes all sorts of in and outdoor schooling "To get adapted to my kind of fooling." Paul Scott Mowrer, former editor of the Chicago Daily News and himself the author Mkrfr when you mm Tk1 yu s . i ONLY HOT WATE oh tap for all thefemily ! have a- WATER HEATER TRADE-IN ALLOWANCE for your old water heater on a new "DAY & NIGHT" Glass Lined Water Heater, Guaranteed 10 Years. strike roots into some sort of popular favor is an art self doomed," Mowrer said. As Frost's publisher, Ed wards feels the old Vcrmontcr is leading the return of qual ity poetry to public favor. "There is a public buying Robert Frost's poetry," Ed wards said. "He is known out there, as a man of wisdom. The public knows him. Taxi cab drivers sometime recite his own poetry to him. There is no question but that the reading of poetry is on the upsurge." The question of what kind of poetry this might be is still open - whether the rhymers and the balladeers will be back with us, or the advocates of frccswinging forms used for many years by Sandburg. Frost expressed one view of it from the poet's side in his new volume where he commemorated an event in a poem tilled "On Being Chosen Poet of Vermont." He said: "Breathes there a bard who isn't moved "When he finds his verse is understood "And not entirely disap proved "By his country and his neighborhood." Medford Gross Product $95 Million While everyone in the country is interested in the gross national product (GNP), which is a measure of the economy as a whole, residents of Medford have a more par ticular interest in their gross local product (GLP). It is a figure that reflects the amount of business activ ity in the city, since it rep resents the market value of all goods and services locally. The bulk of this output, Government reports show, is created by consumer spend ing. It constitutes two-thirds of the total. The remainder consists, for the most part, of expendi tures made by Federal, state from the Standard Rate and Data Service and other sources. It was a good showing. The amount consumed locally came to .0285 per cent of the national output, although the local population is only .0137 per cent of the total. As usual, local tastes and attitudes determined the way the people spent their money. Their expenditures ran the gamut, from automobiles to apparel to travel. As to durable and non-durable goods, there was little change in the national spend ing pattern. The big increase was in services, which rose nearly sti Billion in the year. and local governments and ! Part of the increase was due of capital outlays for indus-1 to the rising cost of services, trial expansion. I Of the S95. 743.000 spent in Nationally, according to j Medford by consumers, S65. the Department of Commerce, 677,000 war for goods bought the GNP was running at the j in local retail stores and $30.- rate of S516 billion annually at the close of the last fiscal year. This compares with the I960 fiscal figure of $504 billion. Included in the new total is $336 billion in consumer expenditures, with $140 bil lion of it for services. Medford's output of goods and services in fiscal 1961 was an estimated $95,743,000, based on figures obtained 066.000 was for services of all kinds. The Commerce Department is highly optimistic about business in the months ahead. It feels that the advance that has been in progress will con tinue, subject to occasional fluctuations, and that the GNP will hit $565 billion or better in 1962. I WATCH FOR APRIL 27 MAGAZINE PAINT COUPONS $7 REDEEM AT $ MEDFORD PAINT & jES I WALLPAPER STORE !)j 6th & Holly - Phone SP 2-9321 $84.50 $30.00 (This offer is available also thru your plumber) Live modern... for less... with (WGAS CALIFORNIA-PACIFIC UTILITIES COMPANY W V RAFT SPILLS One raft spills and a sec ond shoots by In swift McKenzic river rapids during the 24th annual White Water parade last week end. Some 300 boats, rub- Nine Medford Men Take Part in Race On McKenzie River ber rafts, kayaks and skindivers shot the rapids from Bedsides to Lcaburg dam, while thousands viewed the parade. (UPI) 7Va(&vi the, TVeefeex f ' W . t A Ml Now at WALKER th. WEEPERS The KIT Olympia can easily be your new home. We know there is an OLMPIA lo fit you and your budget. Join your friend in mobile home living. LOOKIT the VALUE1 IOOKIT the VARIETYI LOOKIT the SAVINGSl LOOKIT the QUALITY Now at WALKER THE WEEPER'S. 1243 South Riverside SPring 2-8239 Nine Medford persons par ticipated in the 24th annual White Water parade on the McKenzie river last week end. From Medford were Ken Lyons, city recreation direc tor; Mel Jackson, YMCA organizer, Ted Lyons, Arne Harrang, Salli Feule, Chuck McNair, Mike Wickcrsham, Ron Gandee and Dr. 10m Upton. The group had three boats and the parade length on the river was about 20 miles. The boat in which Dr. Up ton and Jackson were riding flipped upside down and the two hung onto the boat until they could get to shore sev eral hundred yards down stream, losing the contents of the boat. They reported that the river was about two feet high er than expected at this time of year, making the rapids more difficult for most of the participants. It was learned after the group started down the river that in the Lyons boat they could not use the oars in the oar locks so it was necessary for them to paddle the boat the entire parade route. The McNair boat was oper ated with two mch rowing and one man on a tiller at the back. The group lunched at West's Bar where Sen. Wayne Morris was a guest. Spectators lined the entire route, they reported. Phone SP 2-5284, Medford 482-2116, Ashland Persons Still Can Receive If an individual is waiting In retire completely before applying for social security benefits, Edward B. Jacobson, district manager of the Med ford social security office, encouraged them to check with the local office. He said a person does not have to retire completely In order to receive some social jwrurity payments each year. There are more than 1 mil linn workers age fi5 or over in this country who can re reive some social security monthly benefits. Before 19B1, a person en tilled to benefits who earn ed over $2,080 and worked all 12 months could not re ceive a check for any month in the year. However, as a result of recent amendments to the law, individuals of re tirement age can receive so cial security benefits even though their earnings are sub stantially over $2,080 for the j year, 'he said. I The lOfil amendments to the Social Security Law pro vide that SI of the total bene fits payable to a family dur ing a year be withheld for every $2 the worker earns hetwern $1,200 and $1,700. I Deductions for earnings in rx- cess nf J,70n will he on dollar for dollar bam. Working Benefits Under the law, II may be possible for a worker with dependents who are also en titled to social security bene fits to earn up to $4,400 in a year and still receive some social security benefits, Jacob son noted. Jacobson urged ' all aged workers who are still em ployed to see the local social j security office to avoid the loss of possible benefits. Many people who are still working, whether iull time or part time, could receive some benefits, he said. Additional information may he obtained at the Medford social security office in the Mall Building, 1005 East Main st. Office hours are 8:30 a m. to 4:30 p m. Monday through Friday. BRILL METAL WORKS Commercial Industrial Rciidcnh! Shtet Metal Work Stainlesi, GaUmised and Copper Fabrication 2287 West Main PHONE SP 2-4440 WAREHOUSE We have the mattress to suit your need. Soft, medium, firm, extra firm at gigantic warehouse lavingsl iff r iTTte'... fi Wei fyfM tltilll fi 220 Coil Mattress & Box Springs $4 Q95 In Each Piew I Sefs 837 Coil Mattress & Box Springs SO J 50 In mm Each Piece Sets '(Ul'"., J'lXU.'?.. . 312 Coil Mattress & Box . S) 485 Each Piece Foam Mattress Set Both SQQ50 Pieces FREE DELIVERY Springs In Sets 510 Coil Mattress & Box $1Q5Q Each Piece LI Springs In Sets EASY TERMS
