Rhodora

Ralph Waldo Emerson, who lived from 1803 to 1882, was one of the leading figures of American Transcendentalism, a movement that placed trust in individual intuition and in the natural world. He is best remembered for his essays and lectures, but he also wrote poetry throughout his life, and The Rhodora is among the briefest and best loved of his poems. It appears in the volume of his verse published in 1847.

The poem is built on a small encounter. A traveller finds a flower in an unlikely place and wonders about its purpose, since nobody is there to see it. His answer, which draws on the idea that beauty has its own justification, is a compact statement of the outlook for which Emerson became famous. It is a poem about nature, but also about attention and about the value of things that do not seem useful.

The recording is a multi-version collection made for the weekly poetry project. Six volunteers read the same text, each in a separate chapter, and the whole thing lasts only a few minutes. They chose it to mark Earth Day in April 2006, which suits its subject. Hearing the poem several times in different voices lets you notice how much a reader's choices matter: where the pauses fall, how much weight rests on the closing lines, whether the flower is addressed with reverence or with gentle amusement.

It is a fine introduction to Emerson's poetry, and an equally good short break in a busy day. It makes a quiet companion for a walk, a lunch hour or the first morning of spring, and invites you to look more closely at whatever small flower grows nearest to you.